Half Life 2: Episode Mayb3
by HedyLamarr
Summary: Gordon resolves to build a life for himself and help rebuild the world he inadvertently destroyed, but there's a mysterious ship on the horizon with temptation on board, trouble closer to home, and the Combine haven't exactly gone away... Please R
1. Introduction and Prologue

**A/N:** So this is my attempt at continuing the story of the Half Life saga. People who have read my previous stories will know that I'm into psychology and relationships rather than the out and out action, however I will do my best to write a few sequences in which Gordon gets to pop a cap in the Combine's ass. Think of this as a potential Episode 3 storyline, only with a lot of the battles, puzzles, and bits where you have to jump from crate to crate at exactly the right angle to avoid being electrocuted taken out, cause I just don't have the talent to write them in an interesting way.

I have written a few stories leading up to this. The order in which they make most sense to read is: Unexpected, Arrival, Beneath the Surface, The Bends, Enough, Falling Into Place. Only The Bends and Falling Into Place are direct prequels though, the others are just character pieces so you wouldn't need to read them for it to make sense.

Just to let you know, I will shortly be going on placement, so updates will occasionally be sporadic.

Please R&R, all feedback is really appreciated and so helpful.

Suggested playlist while reading: Futureheads- This Is Not The World; Arcade Fire- Keep the Car Running; The Bronx- Oceans of Class; We Are Scientists- The Great Escape; Locussolus- Gunship; Vampire Weekend- Giving up the Gun; Belle and Sebastian- any song where a studious boy falls in love with an adventurous girl (ie most of their songs).

* * *

Gordon dozed, enjoying the sunlight streaming in through the window. He hadn't noticed Alyx leave, but the sound of her opening the door roused him and he sat up, pleasantly groggy. She crossed the room and dropped a small wrench and the electronic disruptor device she used on his desk. Noticing he was awake, she gave him a smile and crouched by his bedside.

"How're you doing, Gordon?"

It was a question he'd found it quite difficult to answer lately, but today the answer was clear to him. Still, the complicated kind of happiness he was feeling was too difficult to put into words, so he just smiled back and gave her a sleepy thumbs-up. Alyx rolled her eyes at him affectionately.

"I went down to the hangar while you were asleep, to check on the MI-8."

Gordon frowned. He'd worried that returning to the site of her father's death might have upset her, and he did think he saw a shadow pass across her face. But she remained as determinedly cheerful as ever. "Latke says it's been slightly damaged, but he thinks we'll be able to fix it ok. He just needs a few parts from this supply depot his kin came across a few miles away." She paused. "Fancy a road trip?"

He nodded, sat up and gazed around the room, orientating himself. He'd been sleeping a lot lately, even for him; partly as he recovered from his injuries but partly just because he liked to. His clothes were strewn on the floor, and there was a little light reading on the floor beside the bed, in the form of a summary of Dr Kleiner's work for the past 18 years. Alyx was smiling at him, but slightly expectantly, and he sensed she was eager to get going.

"Why don't I go and bring the car around while you get ready? I'll meet you at the front gate."

She left, and he sat up and put his feet on the ground.


	2. Get Serious Again

Gordon dressed in his heavy combat fatigues and soft warm shirt, picked up the Gravity gun and headed outside. The compound was warm and sunny, and he felt in a good mood as he headed for the gate. There were still many questions he felt needed answering, but he had resolved to stop tormenting himself with all the things he didn't know. His father had told him that true wisdom lay in picking your battles; that you should save the energy spent worrying over things you couldn't change, and direct it towards the things you could. It had been his second favourite piece of advice to give to his son, the first being "put that down, you'll kill us all!" So Gordon had decided to wait for the answers to come to him, for the time being.

Gordon smiled at the memories of his dad, and paused to take in the atmosphere of the base. The war was by no means won, but the battle seemed over for now, and the Resistance was taking advantage of the opportunity to rest. A small group of female rebels were sitting in a circle, gossiping amongst themselves as they broke down and cleaned their weapons. Behind them in the distance a game of touch football was taking place, using one of the dark energy pods from the AR2, which Gordon sincerely hoped had been deactivated in some way. People called out friendly greetings, their faces happy and relaxed after the tension of the Strider attack. But the idyllic image was suddenly shattered as a horrifying scream rang out around the compound. A woman's scream.

Gordon ran in what he hoped was the right direction. Confusingly, no one else seemed to be reacting. As he rounded the corner of the base he stopped, and studied the scene before him. A female rebel walked past, slightly unsteady on her feet. She was clutching at her mouth, but she was also giggling, as was the friend who was supporting her. At the back of the compound was an absolute giant of a man, blond, with a huge beard. He stood behind a chair, and was flanked by two equally huge medics. Two other men stood before him, and Gordon found their voices strangely familiar.

"Maybe I should just leave it, see if it goes away on it's own. Whaddaya think, Sheck?"

"I've had to put up with your complaining all the way here. You're getting this fixed. _Today_."

The expression on the blond giant's face was grave. "Please sit down. If the infection is not removed, it may spread to the bone, and from there to the blood stream. This we do not want, yes?"

Griggs settled himself apprehensively into the chair. "Can't I get like some painkillers or some gas and air or something?" Sheckley rolled his eyes.

"Jesus, Griggs. What do you think this is, Johns Hopkins? They have to save the good stuff for the people who've lost an arm."

"Actually, we may offer him something." The dentist handed Griggs a bottle of murky looking liquor. As he took a drink, he relaxed his guard slightly. This was the signal the medics had been waiting for. One of them grabbed his upper arms and pinned him back against the chair. The other removed the bottle of booze and clamped his hand over Griggs' chin, wrenching his mouth open. The dentist grabbed a pair of long handled pliers from a pan of boiling water behind him and moved forwards, blocking Gordon's vision. There was a sharp crack and a shriek, and then the unfortunate Griggs was released. One of the medics unscrewed the cap from a vial of green medkit liquid and placed it to his lips.

"Rinse and spit."

Griggs complied, and then hauled himself from the chair. His face was pale, but he sounded enthusiastic as ever. "Did ya see that, Sheckley? These guys are _quick_!" He turned back. "Can I keep the tooth?"

"Oh my God… are you hoping for the tooth fairy?"

As the bickering pain made their way towards him, Gordon too opted to beat a tactical retreat, clamping his lips tightly shut. He didn't want to risk the Viking dentist catching sight of his own chipped teeth.

Gordon headed for the front gate, and found it was already open. A column of fighters were making their way into the base, and at their head was-

"Anticitizen One!" Barney called out to Gordon, a broad grin on his tired and dirty face. "I hear you're been giving the Striders a bit of trouble." He strode over and clasped his friend's shoulders. "Sorry I couldn't get here sooner, man. Wait til you hear about what happened to us. Wanna go grab a beer?"

" Actually, I was just going to…" He didn't need to finish the sentence as Alyx pulled up in the muscle car behind them.

"Oh, you two are heading out?" They walked over to the car. Alyx leaped out and embraced Barney.

"I'm so glad you guys are all safe!"

"You too. Listen, I'm sorry to hear what happened to your dad. We picked it up on the radio, couldn't believe it…" Alyx's face fell.

"It's ok, Barney. We're going to make the Combine pay." Then she was all smiles again. Almost as if nothing had happened. "Are you ready, Gordon? Hop in!" She patted the seat enticingly. Barney had an expression of dawning comprehension on his face. He had initially attributed Gordon's slightly proprietorial manner to the car. He leaned in to Gordon.

"Are you two…?" Gordon checked that Alyx's back was turned before grinning and nodding enthusiastically. Barney punched the air, then turned the gesture into a wave as Alyx turned back. "See ya, Alyx! Gordon, I guess we'll get that beer later." _Details later! _he mouthed, but the scientist pretended not to notice, and waved cheerfully as the car sped off.

"By the way, Gordon, look in the back seat." He turned, and was delighted to see his crowbar. He picked it up and moved it to the space between the front seats, what he thought of as the cup holder. "Dr Magnusson insisted it was cluttering up his workshop. I mean it's a tool, and it was in a workshop, so you'd think that would be fine, right? But apparently not." Alyx changed up a gear. "He's the biggest tool in that workshop," she muttered to herself.

Gordon was still a little worried about Alyx, but she just smiled and winked as he glanced across, so he settled back in the seat and let his mind wander as she drove them deeper into the forest. He knew there was still a long hard struggle ahead of them, but he was doing what he usually did when faced with a difficult or unpleasant task, which was to spend time imagining what he would do once it was over. It was a form of procrastination that had driven Magnusson to distraction on more than one occasion; and there had to be a downside to it somewhere too, Gordon thought, as he grinned lazily to himself.

He was thinking about fixing up one of the abandoned farmhouses that dotted the landscape. They could have chickens in the yard, and he'd get to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast every day. It was strange how most birds seemed to have survived unscathed. Maybe avian DNA was unpalatable to Xen creatures, or they just didn't like the feathers? And while the Combine liked to build synths, they had Striders, Hunters and the weird gunship insects; they would have no use for smaller creatures.

Scavenging some Combine technology and rigging up one of those force fields to keep the wildlife out shouldn't be too difficult. They could find an overgrown wheat field or else break into a seed bank, and bake bread. You needed yeast for that, but he'd seen ample evidence of stills on his travels, and baker's yeast was basically the same as brewer's yeast, right? A biologist would know; he'd always known they would turn out to be useful for something. They could sweep the cities clean, and the people from the safe holding areas could begin to move back in. Perhaps Alyx would want to have a baby. That would be the ultimate act of creation. In your face, Dr Breen. He imagined the work he would do with Dr Kleiner. Dark energy for power, travel, defense…

The car came to a halt in front of a concrete bunker, and Alyx hopped out. "Come on, day dreamer, let's get those parts!"

Gordon let himself be directed by Alyx as he used the Grav gun to retrieve the appropriate boxes from the shelves and stack them in the car. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was fun. Then they quickly swept the room for supplies. They weren't quite as thorough as they could have been, though, and they soon found themselves backed up into a private little corner. Gordon loved making out, but he felt oddly distracted, not by a sound, but the memory of a sound. He was in a dark confined space, one that was filled with protruding shelves and crates that would inhibit a quick getaway, yet also tantalizingly full of supplies. The situation seemed familiar somehow.

It was a soft, wet, laboured sound, yet somehow it was threatening. It got louder, to the point where he was sure he wasn't imagining it. Gordon was frozen, and Alyx's eyes met his as realization dawned on them both. The sound was very close now, and there was a sick chuckling quality to it, as though it was congratulating itself on its cleverness.

_Run, _Gordon mouthed to Alyx, then shoved her blindly towards the door as he heard the familiar hissing sound. The black headcrab landed on the shelf right next to his head, and gave a hideously cheerful whistle as it turned to face him. It rattled as he blasted it away from him with the Grav gun. The poison zombie bellowed as he ran for the door, Alyx just ahead of him. They made it out, and he slammed the door behind him, holding onto the handle with all his strength as Alyx made for the car. There was a bang and part of the planking fell away, and he could see the dark decaying face of the zombie as it charged the door. God, it was grotesque, and the sick rotten smell… how had he never noticed?

Suddenly he heard a clanging above him, and a rasping, gibbering, hateful sound, like the ranting of a lunatic with no tongue. He looked up and saw two fast zombies, their faces frozen in their eternal baleful grins. They leaped for him, and he let go of the door and ran. Alyx was calling to him, but he saw with a jolt of horror that she was in the passenger seat. Why did she always expect him to drive when they were fleeing from zombies? The fast ones were right behind him, he wasn't going to make it… He leaped into the car and jammed his feet onto the pedals. The car fishtailed, and crushed one of the zombies under its rear wheels. It had been right at the car! Where was the other one?

He looked to his left and there it was, shrieking and grabbing for him. He felt its claws tear through his left arm. He grabbed for the crowbar with his othert hand and swung it like a baseball bat, knocking the controlling headcrab away from the zombie's frail frame. The car shot forward as he stepped on the gas, and he could hear Alyx whooping and cheering as they sped back towards White Forest with their load of supplies. He felt incredulous. She was relishing the adrenaline, actually enjoying it! Was that what growing up in a war zone did to you?

Gordon felt nothing but sheer terror. He had always hated the zombies, but mainly because of the distortion of human life that they represented. They had never been the most difficult things to actually kill. But that was while he'd been wearing the HEV suit. This was what it must be like for the civilians in Dr Kleiner's designated safe zones. He had faith in the Resistance guards, they seemed well disciplined and they cared about the citizens, and he thought that a good fence and a band of snipers could easily keep out the zombies. But all it would take was a few headcrabs to get into a room where people were sleeping or injured… a horrible image. He thought about the people he'd left behind when he accepted the Grey Man's offer. His brother and sister-in-law had been very fit, the kind of people who ran marathons for fun; and he thought it was quite possible they'd managed to grab Lucas and run. His nephew could be one of these kids with the AR2s, telling him to reload and watch out for hoppers. But his mom's knees had never been good.

Gordon was overwhelmed by the image of a zombie wearing a purple cardigan, standing next to a stove with a pan of macaroni and cheese that had long since burned dry… He was forced to pull over, and leapt from the car just in time to avoid getting it messy with the combination of stale adrenaline and motion sickness from his erratic driving. In a way he was pleased to have thrown up; he needed to be empty for what he was planning to do. He got back in the car and Alyx made sympathetic noises. She gave the back of his neck a little stroke, which made him tingle. He was going to miss that; but they needed to put an end to this situation, and he wasn't going to achieve that by daydreaming about it.

They set off again, more slowly. "Those zombies must have followed the people out of City 17. Looks like it's going to get more dangerous around here," Alyx observed.

"Yeah," he nodded, and tailed off, apparently deep in thought, but then he added "dangerous." Alyx just smiled. That was about par for a conversation with Gordon. He remained quiet as they arrived at the base and he helped her carry the supplies to the hangar; and made no more sound than a hiss through his teeth when Dr Fred dressed his wound in the infirmary. Alyx headed back outside afterwards to catch up with friends, but Gordon went to find Dr Kleiner.

* * *

**A/N - a confession: **some people, on reading chapter 1, might have thought that Gordon has something of a weird obsession with chickens. This was meant to be a reference to the section in Concerned, where a citizen asks Frohman if he is "Gordon Freeman, the sausage king of chic-" Now for some reason, I thought the missing word was "chicken", possibly based on the references to chikens and Cuccos elsewhere in the comic. Having now seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I now realise the missing word is "Chicago." So that's why that's there. I realise that some people have grown quite fond of the idea of Alyx and Gordon living in a cottage and keeping chickens, so I'll be leaving it in ;) Anyway thanks for reading, please keep the reviews coming!


	3. Due North

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews, please keep 'em coming! Sorry it's taking me so long between chapters.

Props to KRSONMar for the beta read.

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Gordon spent the rest of the day working in Dr Kleiner's lab. Eventually, when they had done all that they could do, they headed for the mess hall. It was filled with rebels; a spontaneous gathering that was part victory celebration, part wake for Eli and the others that had died. People shared their memories, some people sang, and then one of the Vortigaunts began to play a haunting, expressive melody on an instrument that looked obviously hand-made, but not by human hands. Everyone fell quiet, and he slipped his arms round Alyx. She picked at the orange and grey flecks on his sweatshirt, but she didn't say anything. He knew she was more than smart enough to have figured out what he'd been working on, which meant she knew that this evening was too precious to spoil.

As the party grew rowdier, more people performed. Gordon had a sinking feeling when Barney came up to them, slightly the worse for wear. "Regulate!" he announced. "C'mon, Gordon!"

"No way." He wasn't nearly drunk enough for that, and he didn't intend to be. He wanted to keep a clear head.

"Come on, Gordon, you know I can't rap."

"Neither can I."

"That's why it's so funny! You know we totally owned the Black Mesa karaoke contest…"

Gordon just laughed and shook his head. Barney laughed too, and headed off into the crowd. On impulse, he followed Barney and grabbed his arm.

"I think me and Alyx are leaving tomorrow, for the Borealis. I don't know if we'll find Judith, not by now, but we need to see what she found."

He wanted to explain to Barney that he needed him with him; because he was worried about Alyx and the way he suspected she was burying the reaction to her father's death; and because he feared dying or being captured, or teleported, or any of the other inexplicable things that seemed to happen to him, and leaving her alone in the Arctic wilderness.

Also, unlike Barney, he had no idea how to mount an assault on a military position. Nova Prospekt had been more luck than judgment.

It didn't need explaining. Barney just nodded.

"Yeah, sure thing, Gordon. I'll meet you back in here at sunup." Barney punched him on the arm, and Gordon smiled. For a moment he was tempted to try and tell Barney everything. The Grey Man who put him into stasis, and the mysterious connections he perceived between him, Eli, and now Alyx. The way the Vorts had bound him to Alyx; and his hope that when the time came, their bonds would prove stronger than those of the Grey Man's employers. But he had already asked his friend to give up the safe shelter of White Forest after only a day, and he didn't want to put anything else on his shoulders. Besides, tonight wasn't the night. He punched Barney on the shoulder in return, but it looked amusingly weird and unspontaneous, like it always did when he tried it; and Barney just grinned and shook his head affectionately. For a moment, it was like being back at Black Mesa. Then Barney wandered over to a particularly animated group of rebels and Gordon went and found Alyx. He took her hand, and they went to his room. He shut the door, and turned to her.

"I've been thinking, Alyx, we should probably set off tomorrow. The sooner we get to the Borealis and check it out, the sooner we can come back to…" His voice tailed off, and he spread his hands, trying without words to encompass their friends, their hopes for the future, and the relationship that was blossoming between them with an intensity that had surprised and delighted him. Alyx smiled, and he understood that she'd been waiting for him to be ready, holding back her desire to avenge her father because she wanted him to be there when she did.

"I think we should set off too. Finish the job, right?"

Gordon smiled with relief, and then his grin broadened as Alyx fixed him with an expression he'd quickly grown to love, and pulled him over to the bed.

The next morning, Gordon slipped quietly out of the room, showered thoroughly, shaved for what might be the last time in a long time, and went down to the mess hall. Barney was sitting in a corner drinking coffee, and he greeted him blearily.

"This is one mother-fie of a hangover, man." Gordon slipped into the seat opposite him with a grin.

"That's cause you got too fie'd up on booze last night."

Barney's hilarity on the day he first overheard Dr Kleiner's unique choice of curse word had known no bounds. The game had quickly developed as part of their friendship; and it was a welcome distraction from the craving Gordon felt for Barney's coffee. "Think you'll be able to avoid hurling all over the fie-ing helicopter?"

"Fie you! I've had worse hangovers than this." Barney paused for a moment and looked reflective. "Besides, getting killed'll seem less fie-ing painful by comparison.

Gordon was slightly taken aback. Barney's sense of humour had never been particularly cynical, apart from when he was talking about his job. But then he reflected that Barney, like Alyx, had spent the past however-many years under threat, and that was bound to give you an edge. Gallows humour was well known as a defence mechanism, so if he was going to really commit to the fight against the Combine, he supposed he should try it on for size. And besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't found some aspects of his situation during the resonance cascade and afterwards to be darkly comical. Being able to share that with someone else would make a nice change.

"If you die this hung-over, you'll leave a motherfie-ing well preserved corpse."

"True. Anyway, it doesn't matter, cause neither of us are going to die. Right, Henry?" Barney addressed this last remark to a passing Vortigaunt who was sweeping the mess hall after the revelry of the night before.

"The Free Man shall not return to the All-In-One." Barney's face fell.

"What about me? _What about the Calhoun_, Henry?" he called. The Vort ignored him and carried on sweeping. He shrugged with forced nonchalance, turned back to Gordon, and finished his coffee. "Guess you'd better go wake Alyx." He toasted Gordon with his coffee cup, and Gordon mimed clinking against it with one of his own.

"See you in the hangar."

Gordon stood up, and jumped slightly when he saw her. He wondered how much of the conversation she'd heard; judging by her look of amusement, it was most of it.

"You know Gordon, if you thought you made it out of the room without waking me up, then we really need to work on your covert skills." He hung his head in mock shame, and she smiled at him. He felt sudden pangs of longing shoot through him, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than just to stay there with her. This was the exact reason he hadn't wanted to wake her. She was beautiful, and smart, and he bet she'd be really good at the fie game.

Instead, he just smiled back at her and headed for the door. He knew he was being abrupt, but he didn't want to give himself any excuse for delay. Once they had been to the Borealis and taken care of whatever they found there, then as far as he understood Magnusson and Kleiner, the Combine would have no means of bringing reinforcements to Earth. It would go from being an impossible fight to a difficult but finite one, and he could return to being a scientist and make a life for himself in the same way his surviving Black Mesa colleagues had. And the thing that would give them the best chance of success was his beloved, hated HEV suit.

He hadn't realised until he took it off quite how different he was when he was wearing it. He didn't feel hunger or thirst, didn't need to sleep, and though he felt pain, the morphine ensured that after a while he didn't really care. To keep him moving despite injury it stimulated his sympathetic nervous system, which also made him mentally sharper and slightly more aggressive. Which was strangely enjoyable, but his relative invulnerability reduced his ability to empathise with others, and brought out a callousness that scared him slightly. It hadn't been an issue back at Black Mesa, because he had only needed it for an hour or two at a time, at critical points during the experiments. But if he put it on now there was no way of knowing how long he'd have to wear it.

Outside the lab, Alyx stopped, and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Are you ok with this?"

He had haltingly told her some of his feelings about the HEV suit on the nights they had whispered together in the small hours, too excited to sleep, wanting to learn everything about each other; and he could see in her eyes now that if he decided to not put it on, to head north wearing the same body armour as any other rebel, she would accept that. That, and the way she'd reacted the night before when he mentioned the Borealis, was what decided him. He would do what it took to help her get over her father's death, and the fact that it would deal a mortal blow to the Combine was the frosting on the cake.

Gordon squared his shoulders and stepped through the door. Dr Kleiner was there already, powering up his equipment for the day.

"Good morning, Gordon! And Alyx, my dear. Have you come to help Gordon out of his clothes?" He turned blithely to his monitor, unaware as Gordon winced and Alyx giggled. Gordon sometimes wondered whether his mentor's air of eccentricity was in fact an incredibly subtle performance, allowing him to get away with outrageous jokes and comments without repercussion. On the other hand, he thought as Kleiner began to search his pockets for the glasses that were already on his face, perhaps not.

Gordon turned. It was in the corner where they'd left it last night to dry, with the crowbar propped next to it. A fresh coat of paint had replaced the dents and bloodstains. Despite his reservations about the suitability of orange and grey as camouflage in an Arctic environment, he'd ended up leaving it the way it was the day he first saw it. Despite everything that had happened, they were still his favourite colours. The embossed lambda on his chest stood out as boldly as ever. Bring it on, Combine.

He thought of kicking back on the couch with a cold beer and a plate of nachos, reading the crisp new edition of the Phys Rev. He thought of spending all day in your PJs playing videogames, just because you could. He thought of walking into labs where the walls were sterile white tiles, the equipment was shiny and new, and if you needed something they didn't have, you could just order it off the internet.

He thought of his mom.

His world was never coming back, no matter what he did.

Then he looked at Alyx and thought of what he could still have, and suddenly it was easy. He stepped behind the screen and put the suit on; felt the sharp sting of the needle at his elbow, and the duller stabbing sensation of the catheter. The HUD appeared next, calibrated to holographically project at the optimum distance for his eyes to focus on automatically, as long as he was wearing his glasses. Apparently he was 90% healthy; pretty respectable, considering how ill he'd been only a few days before. He could feel the hot-cold tingling sensation as the automatic medical system went to work on his upper arm where the zombie had clawed him. On superficial wounds it was quite a pleasant sensation; when it was working on his viscera it was almost unbearable, so he made a mental note to avoid falling or getting shot this time.

Gordon moved across to the power socket, and smiled as he felt rather than heard the hum as the suit powered up around him. Going into danger through choice, rather than simply finding himself forced into a situation where it was fight or die, was oddly exhilarating. He also felt the excitement of intellectual curiosity. Instead of being surrounded at every turn by people who knew more than he did about what was going on, he was going out to the Borealis to discover what was on board for himself. Gordon felt suffused with optimism as he strode (the HEV suit was good for striding) across the floor towards Alyx. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flicker on one of Dr Kleiner's monitors, but when he turned to look there was nothing there. He picked up his crowbar and headed for the hangar.

Barney was waiting for them by the helicopter when they arrived, along with a small group of rebels. Three of them greeted him enthusiastically; Lars the Viking dentist, now bearing the heavy pack and white armband of a medic; Tim, a heavyset far-Eastern looking man who Gordon thought he recognized; and a small Indian woman with an incomprehensible Scottish burr. The fourth man stood back slightly, and nodded when Gordon looked over to him. "Jarrod." he said, then climbed into the cockpit and became deeply engrossed in a map. The others began loading weapon and supplies into the back of the copter, and Gordon joined in. He noticed how Barney and Alyx were talking, their faces grave, discussing tactics, provisions and cold-weather survival. He felt surprised, but then realised he shouldn't be. Alyx's father had been leading the fight, and Barney had been right in the thick of it. This had been their life for 20 years; Alyx had grown up knowing nothing else. It was only natural for them to take charge, and he admired them for it tremendously.

On the other side of the helicopter, Magnusson was supervising the installation of a Magnusson Device dispenser. Latke was bolting it to the floor of the cargo hold; a pencil clutched in his third arm the way a human might hold it between his teeth. Magnusson addressed the mechanic, his voice a stream of oddly distorted vowels and hissing sibilants, and Latke replied the same way. Gordon felt his jaw drop slightly. He was genuinely impressed, and turned to Barney.

That's incredible! Has anyone else learned to speak their language?" Barney laughed, but his eyes were slightly uneasy. Dr Magnusson, however, just looked disappointed.

"That, my erudite friend, was Swedish." He gave the dispenser a tug to make sure it was in place, then turned and left.

They couldn't set off quickly enough for Gordon after that, and luckily the last of the ammunition was soon stowed aboard. Alyx gave him a brief, slightly bashful kiss and then hopped up into the cockpit next to the dark haired man. Gordon and the others piled into the back. Barney gestured to the mounted gun.

"Wanna do the honours Gordon?" Gordon swallowed, but eased himself behind the gun as they left the ground. He was unenthusiastic about heights at the best of times, but it made sense, given the HEV suit. The mood among the little group was light hearted, particularly after Barney demonstrated the emergency exits (one big one), the life jackets (none), and the range of duty free. It meant nothing to Tim and Alyx, but the others laughed appreciatively. Even Jarrod joined in, with a laconic "doors to manual" via the intercom.

The attack came after they had been flying for over an hour, just long enough for the initial apprehension to have worn off, but not close enough to landing for them to be on their guard. The gunship was suddenly alongside them, raking them with its cannon. Gordon's mouth went dry and he felt his palms sweating inside his gauntlets, which suddenly felt ridiculously clumsy. But he aimed and fired, and it worked, just like it always seemed to. He watched the tracer flowing out through the air ahead of him, saw the bullets impact and bury themselves in the creature's side.

It had initially been focused on the cockpit, but now it turned its attention to Gordon. A stream of fire struck him directly, agonizing, winding him. The familiar refrain began in his head. _Major trauma detected… Automatic medical system engaged… Morphine administered. _He ignored it and kept shooting, trying through the pain to focus his fire onto the narrowest part of the circular structure surrounding the gunships rotor.

"Jarrod, Alyx! Can you try and distract it?" He heard Barney yelling over the intercom, but it seemed to be coming from a long way away.

"Ah, that's a negative, we don't have a forward gun, over."

"Wait a minute…" Alyx's voice. There was the sound of breaking glass, follower by the rattle of her machine pistol. "We do now!" The rebels in the hold gave an ironic cheer.

The gunship was no longer shooting at him, but it was now shooting at Alyx, which Gordon liked even less. He slumped in his seat, trying to force his hand to keep squeezing the trigger.

"Dr Freeman! Are you hurt?" someone called.

"Of course he's hurt, you dumbass! He just got kicked in the stomach by a bomb." Gordon thought they should have used Barney's voice in the HEV suit, instead of the anonymous, cool sounding woman. That was a much better description than simple "trauma."

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and then Lars was by his side. "Here, take this med kit." He heard the electronic whooshing sound as the medic applied his magic green liquid directly into the external port of the HEV suit. A firey sensation spread throughout his system, and suddenly everything felt easier. He directed another stream of fire into the rotors, which were now smoking ominously. The creature began to turn back towards him, but ponderously now, as if it was as disorientated as he had been a few moments ago. He felt a brief spark of pity for it, but only very brief. Then the Scottish woman was handing him a rocket launcher.

The gunship howled mournfully as it fell away, explosions ripping through its body, but its cries were drowned out by whoops and cheering from people surrounding him. He could hear Alyx's voice over the intercom, praising him, and he grinned as he sat back, but his expression gradually changed to one of wonder. He'd never paid much attention to clouds, but when you were up this close to them, they were really quite... cloudy, weren't they?

Pleasantly full of morphine as he was, the remainder of the journey seemed to take no time at all.


	4. The Aurora

The sky had begun to darken by the time the helicopter touched down in the lee of a stone outcropping. Gordon felt the shock of the cold air hitting his lungs as he emerged from the hold and stretched, along with Barney and the others. He'd always wanted to see the tundra; the midnight sun and the Northern Lights. But he was hardly a tourist, and these were not the circumstances he had imagined. Alyx and Angelique vanished off to one side, and the male rebels formed a line facing the rocks and began to pee. Gordon turned away and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling embarrassed, but also slightly excluded from the male bonding. He suspected the HEV suit collected his own urine and used it as a raw material for the compounds it then injected back into him. Fascinating, but kind of gross if you thought about it too much.

Barney gave a sigh of relief and made his way back over.

"Jesus, it's cold!" he announced, and began breaking open the bale of winter camouflage clothing. The squad donned salopet-style pants and padded, hooded coats. Gordon's body felt comfortable, but his ears were starting to glow with the cold, so he pulled on a hat. The supplies were distributed, and they took five minutes to check their weapons, and to eat something. Gordon was carrying an AR2, which was secretly his favourite despite the way it burned through ammunition and was woefully inaccurate. An alien plasma rifle that used dark energy technology was just cool on so many levels; and he liked the noise it made as well. He realised, however, that he had no idea how to check his weapon, or any of the others, so instead he wandered over to where Alyx was perched on her rucksack. He thought she looked very cute with the ruff of fur on the edge of her hood surrounding her face. She was holding what looked like some sort of protein or energy bar, turning it over and over in her hands as though deciding whether or not to open it; but she was gazing blankly out into the dusk. She looked up as she saw him coming though, and the expression on her face was replaced with a smile.

"You know what?" she said, "I'll eat it later," and she pocketed the bar. He opened his mouth to suggest she should maybe eat it now, keep her strength up, but then he checked himself. She had been in this situation hundreds of times before, whereas he didn't even know how to check his rifle. He was still slightly in awe of her grace under pressure, her fearlessness and her general kick-ass-ness; the last thing he wanted to do was patronize her. She kissed him before he could say anything anyway, and tugged at his arm. "Come sit with me."

He sat next to her with his feet tucked under him, her arm around his waist, and cautiously put his arm around her shoulder. He felt a tinge of sadness as Alyx sighed and leaned into him. He hoped she was enjoying the embrace; because it was doing nothing for him, besides making him nervous that he might hurt her with the hard or sharp edges of his suit.

Still, it hardly mattered, as there wasn't going to be much time to sit around hugging. They covered the helicopter with a big white tarpaulin, tethered it to the ground, and set off. Either the helicopter would remain undetected, or it wouldn't; there was no sense in worrying, when they didn't even know if they would be coming back.

Gordon suddenly realised he hadn't thought like that for a while. Coming back. At Black Mesa he'd fought his way to the surface and then gone to Xen with the idea that if he succeeded, then he would be able to return to friends, family, a world he understood. But he had been swiftly disabused of that notion shortly after waking up in City 17, and throughout those days he had felt a mindless, exhausting, almost nihilistic sense of continuously moving forward with no end in sight. His only goals had been to find out what the hell had happened while he'd been away, and maybe to survive. In that order. Now, though, he once again had things to come back to; and even though it made the thought of fighting the Combine scarier, Gordon thought that he was better that way.

They moved out in a big V shape, with Barney at the point, and Gordon at the far end of one of the arms. When Gordon looked up, he saw that their formation was mirrored by a flock of large pale bird-like creatures, migrating across the sky like manta rays. With the sun just below the horizon, the landscape was bathed in a dim grey glow, almost as if the snow was lit from beneath. The sky was deep navy, and the first stars were visible. Gordon could see the white plumes of his breath rising into the sky, and he felt very alive, surrounded by a kind of harsh beauty. He turned to look back at the helicopter, and it was already barely visible. The only sound was the creak of snow under their feet as they walked.

An indistinct shape, dirty white against the brilliant white of the snow. He only saw it for a second, long enough to draw his attention. Then it vanished, but another one appeared, much closer, and it leapt on Angelique and bore her to the ground. He quickly pulled up the grav gun and sent it flying a few feet away into a snowdrift; then followed, raising his rifle, but she was faster than he was. He heard isolated gunshots as other members of the squad fought off their attackers, saw Alyx shoot one at point-blank range, Barney muttering curses under his breath as he kicked out and then stamped. Gordon fired at a couple, but he kept missing. They were so indistinct against the snow.

The rest of the pack regrouped and ran, seeming to conclude that their prey wasn't worth the pain. Gordon stopped to examine one of the creatures. It was built along typical Xenian lines, with two legs at the front and one at the back, but unlike most of the things he'd seen at Black Mesa, it was furry. The fur was thicker at the neck and shoulders, and along the back, and it was coloured like a husky dog. The face was flat and appeared to be all mouth, which contained a ring of viciously sharp teeth, the kind of thing you saw on a shark or a Moray eel. Alyx, Barney and the others hadn't seemed too surprised by the creatures. Apparently the Xen fauna had expanded to most types of terrain while he'd been away.

Turning back, Gordon thought he saw movement out to his left. A deep shadow resolved itself into the Grey Man standing in the distance, seemingly unaffected by the cold as he stood there, relaxed in his business attire, watching Gordon. Before Gordon could take more than a few steps towards him, he casually lifted his briefcase and strolled behind a stone pillar with the air of a man who had just completed an essential yet ultimately minor errand, such as mailing a letter. Gordon frowned. Had it just been a shadow after all? He didn't suppose it mattered either way. Many times he'd tried to follow the Grey Man, but he hadn't caught up with him once.

"Hey Gordon! You gotta hold your position." Barney's voice was surprisingly faint, and Gordon turned to see that the rest of the squad had already come close to reaching the top of the next ridge. He ran on a diagonal to make up the distance he'd lost. There was a crunching, cracking sound, and he just had time to realize that his foot had broken through ice as he tripped and fell forwards. He landed heavily on all fours and felt the ice give way, and he yelped with the shock of the cold as he sank into the dark water of the frozen pond beneath. His helmet sealed across automatically as soon as he hit water, and he tried to strike out for the surface, but the cold was numbing, and he couldn't tell if the movement of his arms and legs was in any way coordinated, or even if they were moving at all. One thing his suit didn't manufacture was oxygen, and he soon began to grey out. Red flashes appeared at the edges of his vision. His lungs were agony.

Gordon saw light ahead of him. He initially thought it was the fabled tunnel, but then he realised he was surfacing. The next moment he felt himself being lifted beneath the armpits and dragged back onto the ice. Opening his eyes, he blurrily saw Barney and Lars bending over him, staring back. He opened his mouth to take a breath, but his chest and throat were so tight with the cold that for a moment he thought he wouldn't be able to manage it, and his thoughts raced with panic. Eventually he inhaled, a big whooping breath, and he saw Barney's face relax and move away. On his other side, Lars knelt down and opened his pack. He could feel someone squeezing his hand through his thick gloves, and he heard a voice, murmuring Gordon, thank God, you're ok, Gordon. He realised that both of these must be Alyx.

Gordon lay on the ground, still gasping, his thoughts gradually clarifying. He turned his head slightly, and he could see Barney walking away from him, towards the others. From his vantage point on the ground he noticed that Barney was still wearing his heavy CP boots. Jarrod came up to Barney, the cheerful grin on his face at odds with the flat look in his eyes. Tim and Angelique were sitting a little off to one side, watching what was happening with the air of people expecting a confrontation.

"So that's the Opener of the Way, huh?" he said with a forced lightheartedness. Gordon couldn't tell if Jarrod thought he was still unconscious, or if he just didn't care.

"Jarrod, you weren't at Black Mesa and you weren't in City 17. Now let's leave it at that." Barney's voice was devoid of its usual expressiveness. Gordon knew that was a sign he was controlling his anger. He had only heard it a few times.

"No, I wasn't in City 17. I was busy fighting my way up through Italy, cause the railroad put the call out for a pilot. Then when I get here, all I find is everyone's losing their heads over… this guy."

"You know why Eli wanted him. The Vorts…"

"Oh my God, not the mystical bloody Vortigaunts"

"My dad believed in what they had to say." Alyx's voice was ominously quiet.

Jarrod ignored her. "Look, Calhoun, I respect you, and I know he's your friend, but this guy… I mean he's probably ok, but he doesn't belong in the field. He can't even hold position. He's a lab nerd. He just got lucky with the suit, is all. Anyone could do what he does, if they had one."

"Look, _Matthews_." Barney stepped forwards, so that they were directly face to face. Gordon could feel Alyx squeezing his hand tighter and tighter. But then all the fight seemed to go out of Barney, and he looked tired. "I agree with you. And I think Gordon would too. He should be in the lab. But, somehow, he kicks ass in spite of himself. Now go get your damn compass and find us the Borealis, ok?"

Gordon felt embarrassed and strangely touched. He tried to sit up, but he found that the water had frozen into sheets of ice, preventing movement between the plates of his armour. He began snapping it off. Alyx joined in, and they made it into a little game. Barney came over, saw what they were doing and chuckled.

"Like trying to start an old car on a frosty morning." Jarrod overheard him, snorted disdainfully. "Oh come on, man, it's pretty funny!"

"Yes, yes it is kind of funny. It's not a quality I look for in a leader though."

Gordon brushed off the last of the ice and got to his feet.

"I'm not the leader," he said quietly, pointing at Barney and Alyx. "They are." He moved very pointedly into position, and waited for the rest of the V-shape to reform ahead of him. He could feel his cheeks burning. In a way it was refreshing to meet someone who didn't see him as some sort of new messiah, and he certainly shared the pilot's assessment of his combat abilities; but the idea that it might seem to some people that he wanted adulation, or even power, made him cringe inside.

They set off again. Gordon felt more subdued this time. He could hear Tim and Angelique up ahead, talking under their breath as they moved up the slope.

"I was in City 17; I thought he was awesome." Tim sounded nervous but determined to make his point.

"Aye, so was I, but I was with the lot that burned down the CP barracks; we didn't get too near the Citadel. I've heard he was a right wee rocket though."

"Do you believe the whole, you know… thing?" Gordon frowned. He knew he wasn't the best when it came to verbal fluency, but still, way to be nonspecific, Tim.

Before she could reply, a crackling sound filled the air above them, and the Northern lights appeared, green and orange and pink, rippling through the sky. They all stared upwards for a moment, transfixed. Alyx smiled at the look of awe he knew had appeared on his face, and he grinned back, thrilled by the experience. He had found physics beautiful from a young age, but he'd soon learned that only a few people, people who shared both his high degree of theoretical training and his very visual imagination, were capable of appreciating the things that he would try to describe. It was one of the reasons he'd grown so close to Dr Kleiner. But this was a beautiful phenomenon of particles and forces that didn't need imagining, because it was all around him. He couldn't keep the grin off his face as he wandered through the monochrome landscape suddenly rendered vivid with colour. The Aurora above him was reflected in the snow below, delicate pink and vivid green and red.

Red? He just had time to think that the colour was wrong, it was dull and baleful, when suddenly Tim vanished. The snow where he had been standing was smeared with blood, streaked with charred material; and Gordon's ears were ringing. As the sound died away he heard the crackle of voices distorted by masks and transceivers, and the clink as another grenade hit the ground. Then they were running, and as they crested the hill he saw a plain spread below him, with a ship sitting incongruously on its side in the snow, surrounded by floodlights and tracked vehicles. Off slightly to one side were a series of containers and prefab buildings, linked together to form a small compound protected by the familiar blue forcefields. And swarming out of the buildings and up the hill towards them came the Combine.

The rest of the squad spread out as they ran towards their objective, but Gordon cut across the group and headed for Alyx as quickly as possible. Screw the formation; the only position he was going to hold was in between her and any Combine bullets that were coming her way. As he ran he raised the grav gun and punted a grenade that had landed in front of him. It flew back into the air, accompanied by a spray of snow that the energy blast had dislodged from around it, and exploded in midair between two approaching soldiers. He heard their digitized death rattles as they fell to the ground, the blue lights that persisted in their eye sockets reflecting eerily from the snow.

"Way to go, Doc!" Barney yelled, and Gordon frowned. He didn't like it when Barney called him that; as he'd once tried to explain, it wasn't as if he went around calling Barney "Officer Calhoun."

Still, now was hardly the time to complain. He made it to Alyx's side and took his stand, firing at any soldiers who got too close, trying to keep an eye on Barney as well as Alyx. The landscape was lit by muzzle flash and explosions and the alien glow of the Aurora. He heard screams, but before he could turn to see who it was, he noticed a small detachment of Combine making their way towards a black metal device, planted upwards in the snow. Gordon had no idea what it was, but if it was important to the Combine then it was probably bad news for them, so he took aim, but his shots went wide.

"Try using both hands, you might actually hit something." Jarrod had apparently also spotted the black object, but before either of them could prevent it, the soldiers reached their destination, and a flare was sent arcing into the night sky. He heard Barney spitting curses as his friend came running over.

"Gordon! Go with Alyx to the ship and do what you gotta do. We're gonna try and take their base; we should be able to hold off the reinforcements a lot easier from there." Then he was off again, charging for the nearest container with Jarrod following behind. Barney was whirling his forearm above his head, in the gesture that meant "to me." Gordon had seen it many times before during combat, and he wondered if the Combine appreciated the fact that so much of the training they had given Barney was now being used against them.

Gordon and Alyx hurled themselves across the plain towards the Borealis. The ship itself looked relatively structurally intact, but the dry dock had evidently been part of a much larger building, and it was open at both ends where it had literally been torn away. The room at the nearest end had once been an office, and while the exposure to the elements had not treated it well, it still looked like shelter. They made for it, but some Combine soldiers, aware of their intentions, moved to block their path. Alyx was slightly in the lead, and she took care of two of them, but the third stayed out of her line of fire and raised his rifle. Gordon felt a bolt of terror as he saw the soldier take aim. He was normally as quiet in combat as he was in other areas of his life, but the sight of the soldier about to fire on Alyx galvanized him, and he took a deep breath as he ran forwards, his voice high and hoarse with the cold.

"HEY! Hey you dumb fucker! You've got the One Free Man here and you're not even shooting at me! I mean what is wrong with you, you, you…" Gordon wished he had Barney's extensively abusive vocabulary. His voice had begun to tail off gradually as he ran out of insults, and fell silent altogether when he noticed that he'd also run out of ammo. As the soldier turned to him he flailed for a moment, but then his fingers gripped the crowbar and he swung it, letting his momentum carry him forwards, and he felled him with a single blow. "… You foolish individual," he finished quietly, suddenly embarrassed. More blood on the snow, mixed with thicker, slightly gooey looking stuff, as well as the occasional electronic component. All at once, he felt sick. He had killed so many of the Combine, but sometimes his reaction still took him by surprise. He took the machine gun from the dead soldier, then tore his gaze away and turned to Alyx. She just looked impressed, and he was glad.

They entered the dry dock, and it was surreal to be suddenly walking on carpet after the snow. There was a door on the other side of the office that was unlocked when Gordon tried it, so they moved quickly through and closed it behind them, muffling the sound of the battle that was still going on. He looked around for some means of sealing the door behind them, and adopted the high-tech solution of wedging the back of a chair under the handle. It wouldn't keep their pursuers out for long, but it might at least give them some warning. They took a moment to catch their breath. Alyx soon looked calm once more, but he sensed that she was steeling herself for something, or else holding intense emotion in check. When he looked up, he thought he saw why. They were in a long pale corridor, with windows on either side and dull fluorescent lights above. It was the place where Judith had been taken, and he knew that the prospect of facing Hunters again terrified her. He caught her eye, his expression questioning, but she nodded.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, and made to set off, but then she turned her gaze back to him, with one eyebrow raised and a slight grin on her face. "You foolish individual?"

* * *

A/N - a rocket is a Glaswegian word for a petty criminal or vandal who's always being followed by the police. Inspired by my friend who described the Freeman as a rocket for smashing a crate while being pursued by the cops at the start of HL2 for the first time - it cracked me up ;D


	5. The Borealis

At the other end the corridor divided in two, with little pictograms on each wall giving information and instructions to staff. Gordon frowned. He knew Aperture were aiming for the kind of informal minimalism that had been trendy in the years before the resonance cascade, but to him it looked a bit childish. Give him a good old-fashioned training hologram any day. Back at Black Mesa he'd been secretly hoping to get a holographic assistant of his own. No much chance of that now, although maybe it was something Dr Kleiner would reinstate to train his army of scientists and technicians. They studied the directions toether. The right-hand corridor only had a single symbol, indicating a ship. Well, that was clear enough.

"I'll go down this way, check the coast is clear," Alyx said, leaving him with the left-hand corridor. He wandered down it, senses alert, until he came to a door labeled with a stick figure, diving through some sort of hoop. He frowned again. A swimming pool?

When he went inside, there was what looked like a large laboratory, with white walls and benches around the edges. There was a scale painted along one wall, and a cube in the centre of the room, covered with different surfaces on every side. The benches had cabinets below them, and the one on the far end had swung open. He gasped when he saw what was inside. It couldn't be another grav gun, because as far as he knew Eli had only made one, and the end was also slightly different. It was orange too, though, and it had the same oddly comforting heft.

When he stopped to think about it, he wasn't thrilled by the fact that he now found weaponry intriguing, let alone comforting, but at the same time, he really wanted to try it out. He raised the gun, fired at the nearest wall, and… nothing.

Well, not nothing. A weird silvery-grey oval appeared on the wall in front of him. The surface appeared rippled, yet it was completely flat, invisible from the side. He touched it, curious, and what felt like a very mild electric shock ran up his arm. On reflection, he thought, he should probably be pleased. He had fired a completely random weapon into a wall only a few feet away from him. For all he knew it could have set all the oxygen in the room on fire, or released some sort of horrible alien, or at the very least given him an embarrassing ricochet injury. Feeling glad that Alyx hadn't been there to see him, he returned the gun to its locker and headed back off down the corridor.

He linked up with Alyx at the entrance to the gangway, but the door was locked. Slightly further down the corridor, another door revealed a plant room. It was only sporadically lit, by what looked like large sparks. They were periodically ejected from a device on one wall, went bouncing around the room, and then dispersed. Gordon pricked up his ears. The sound they made was remarkably similar to the noise the spheres of energy had made in the Citadel. Alyx turned to him.

"It looks pretty dangerous in there…"

"Don't worry." He stepped forward and tapped his breastplate, liking feeling able to protect her, a situation that arose all too rarely. Timing it to avoid the sparks, he slipped through the door and then turned to study the room. The wall opposite the dispenser contained what looked like a cradle, but it had been pried loose and was hanging by wires, leaving the sparks to bounce off the bare wall below, creating a black scorch mark. The sparks would fly around the room for a while and then wear down. Obviously, the spark needed to go into the socket. Again, like the Citadel. If only he had the uber-Grav gun, he'd be able to grab the spark and put it in the socket, no bother. But what to do now… He looked at the problem for a while. The sparks went bouncing around, and he wondered if there was any way of deflecting them. Then he stepped back and looked at it again.

You know, he told himself, for an intelligent guy, you can be quite stupid sometimes.

He used the Grav gun to lift the cradle, lining it up with the scorch marks. When the next spark arrived, it fit neatly into the socket. There was a humming sound and a clunk as the door locks were released. Gordon released the cradle, and it swung back against the wall, loose on its wires. Studying it for a moment, he saw that judging by the chips and scratched surrounding it, it had been torn out of the wall. There were some reddish-brown stains mixed in with the damage. Gordon would wish later that he'd paid more attention to these.

The ship was resting awkwardly on its side. That would make getting around inside more difficult; still, that couldn't be helped. Alyx made her way down the gangway ahead of him. The deck was listing towards them and they were forced to scramble up it until they reached the door into the superstructure.

Inside, a set of stairs took them below decks, ending in an ominous-looking expanse of dull water where the lower decks had flooded. Gordon felt cold just looking at it. This sort of thing was just his luck. Turning to Alyx, he was surprised to see what almost looked like relief on her face.

"Guess that's as far as we're gonna get… let's go back on deck, we need to find a way to blow the whole ship."

"I can go through there… I don't mind." He did mind, of course. His suit would protect him from physical harm, but he remembered lying on the snow, fighting to breathe after his previous surprise immersion. It wasn't an experience he was keen to repeat. But he had taken this task upon himself, to disrupt the Combine's ability to bring reinforcements through, and thereby secure a possible future for Alyx and himself. Choosing his own objective instead of simply being sent from point to point was a relatively new experience for him, and he was determined to do it properly. What if they destroyed the ship around the vital technology, but it remained intact and sunk through the ice, waiting for the Combine to come back and use it? Besides, while he did want to destroy it, he wouldn't mind at least getting a look first.

"Alyx… I don't think…"

Her eyes flashed. "You want to use it, don't you?"

He gasped, feeling guilty, and then angry because he had nothing to feel guilty about. He cursed his inarticulacy, because while he wanted nothing more than to explain his reasoning to her, and reassure her that he would follow her father's wish, all he could manage was an indignant "No!"

"I heard what Dr Kleiner said." She was backing away, shaking her head, and he could see tears in her eyes. Her sudden distress alarmed him, and he stepped towards her to try and comfort her. But she was already composing herself. It was the way she'd looked after he'd freed her from the Stalker on the train, after the portal storm had swept across them; devastated one moment, and then raising her guard, forcing herself to become calm the next. To know that he was the one who had upset her like that, even unintentionally, was horrible. He encircled her with his arms, very gently, his heart pounding so hard he was sure she'd be able to hear it. She sniffed back her tears, wiped her cheek roughly, and looked straight back at him.

"You're right," she said, but her voice was flat and dull. They moved back to the edge of the water together. Gordon hadn't had much luck with relationships in the past, so the feeling of annoyance, shame and downright confusion familiar to most people after they'd managed to upset their partners was a new one to him, and he felt awful. He stared at his boots, then tried to meet Alyx's eyes.

"Will you wait here for me?" She nodded, pulled some charges out of her pack and handed them to him. Then there was nothing left for him to do but jump. The shock was reduced as he knew what was coming, but the cold itself seemed worse. He let himself sink to the bottom then pulled himself along the walls, looking for a way up. He broke through the surface and dragged himself up onto a ledge, gasping noisily. Once he got his breath back, he set off deeper into the ship, making his way awkwardly along the slanted corridor.

Gordon initially didn't pay much attention to his surroundings, as he was sunk too deep in thought. He didn't understand why she'd become so upset so close to their goal. They'd been following her dad's wishes when they... her dad.

For an intelligent guy, he really could be quite spectacularly stupid.

When Gordon had answered his phone and heard the news of his own father's death, he had gone back to his dorm, locked himself in his room, and cried. His roommates had rallied round him, made him cups of sweet tea, and within a day or two he'd been coping. He hadn't cried at the funeral, hadn't cried again until almost a year later, when the pressure of studying for his finals became suddenly too great. It had taken him a while to realize that he was actually still mourning his father, that the stress of the situation had simply brought it to the surface.

Following Eli's death, Gordon had wanted to be there for Alyx, but he'd been very injured, and in his weakened state his emotions had come flooding back in and overwhelmed him. The guilt he felt over what happened at Black Mesa, and the pressure of so many people considering him the One Free Man, had combined and produced what he now thought was some kind of nervous breakdown. Alyx had been the one that had brought him through it and out the other side. He'd thought she was getting over her own grief well, but it seemed she'd just been burying it in her desire to get to the Borealis and fulfill her father's wish. And now, so close to their objective, the tough exterior he admired so much had finally cracked.

He was pretty proud of this insight. Generally speaking, he wasn't that good at emotional stuff, but Alyx had really brought it out of him. The desire to be back with her and comfort her was overwhelming. They could just blow the whole ship, then check for whatever it was in the wreckage. He could hit it with the crowbar to make sure. Gordon grinned and reminded himself to use that line on Alyx. He loved making her laugh. He was going to heal her the way she'd healed him.

He was about to head back to the flooded section, when he rounded a corner and saw something that took his breath away. A corridor of rooms containing bunks and portholes branched off at either side. He thought he saw shapes in some of the bunks, and his suspicion was confirmed when he came across a man who had clearly hanged himself. In the next room, a woman was slumped against the bulkhead, a pistol in her hand. Gordon caught his breath, disturbed. He'd seen people in City 17 who had clearly taken their own lives, but it was the middle of a warzone, so it had seemed less surprising, although still upsetting. But for these scientists to have committed mass suicide troubled him deeply. Aperture had been a popular choice for work experience and recruitment fairs; these could be people Gordon had known. He stepped into the centre of the room. The bodies had clearly been dead for years, but even so, they had been well preserved by the cold, and expressions of horror were clear on their faces. He was about to leave, when a voice rang out, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was a female voice, oddly familiar; cold, but with a hint of malice.

"As the sole surviving employee of the Aperture Science Collaborative Research Division, please make your way to the control room."

Gordon frowned. He certainly wasn't an Aperture employee.

"Your fellow Collaborators have been subjected to a series of mental and psychological tests. The results were…" an almost imperceptible pause… "disappointing. Please make your way to the control room."

Gordon stood still, trying to identify the source of the voice. He identified a moving camera in the corner of the room, at the same time as a red beam of energy came shooting out, singeing his arm and making him wince. He raised his crowbar, intending to destroy it.

"Attempts to interfere with the Aperture Science Employee Constructive Criticism Device may result in further criticism." He snorted and raised his crowbar, but the camera zapped him again, in the chest this time. At that point Gordon decided discretion was the better part of valour. He couldn't really afford to lose the health points. He stepped back into the corridor and stopped, astonished. The panels had shifted, somehow, and the direction he'd arrived in was no longer open. Sighing, he headed in the other direction, towards what he suspected must be the control room.

As he crossed the threshold, the door slid shut behind him, seamlessly obscuring the exit. He had expected something of the sort, and dived for the cover of a console as he raised his machine gun and sighted the familiar camera in the corner. The voice rang out again, a digital sing-song.

"You wouldn't do that, if you could see what I can see…"

He stuck his head out cautiously. Alyx was on the monitors. She was crouching on her haunches, checking her gun, then she stood and stretched. She crossed the room, then crouched down again. Waiting for him. He stood up warily, facing the camera.

"What do you want?"

"Push the button to open the door." He looked over and saw the panel, hesitated with his hand over it, and felt the burn of the laser again, like a prompt. He saw sudden movement on the monitor. There was another camera on the wall behind Alyx, moving to point towards her. He gave a growl of frustration, and hit the button. The workstation became surrounded by what looked like blue flames, and he heard a rushing sound. An alarm was blaring, but it sounded a long way off. The last thing he heard was the voice again, and there was definitely more than a hint of malice overlying the superficial helpfulness this time.

"Did you hear me say door? Did I say door? 'Cause I definitely meant portal." Then everything… flipped.

The air was suddenly warmer and more humid, causing him to sweat inside his suit, and there was an unpleasant smell in the air. The floor was echoing metal underfoot. Gordon opened his eyes, but he already knew where he was.

Gordon had read the sci-fi story Of Men and Monsters for a book report in high school, and he was once again reminded of it now. The scale of Combine architecture was just wrong. It was too big for a human to comprehend. He had landed in some sort of chamber, three walls of which were lined with the familiar metal that looked like tarnished bronze. The wall behind him was a blue rock, maybe the ore that the metal came from, and it rose into a great outcropping, facing a curved glass sheet high up in the opposite wall. A metal tube led up to the screen. Gordon suspected he knew what was behind there. He went back to the console, and found that it was still getting power from somewhere. Looking at the buttons and dials, he thought you could probably program it with different co-ordinates, maybe even change the size of the portal. If he took a little time…

An alarm began to sound, and he knew he was out of time. He looked up at the jingling and rattling sound of fast approaching Combine troops. He had almost no ammo left, and there could be literally thousands of them; an unlimited supply here on the homeworld. He fired anyway, not wanting to accept that the situation was hopeless. He had brought the Combine the thing he had been meant to destroy, and so he knew what he had to do now. As Barney would probably put it, he was totally boned, and there was only one way out. Part of him shied away from the thought with horror; but he forced the implications to the back of his mind, and concentrated on diligently placing his charges and setting the detonator the way Alyx had shown him. He had brought a few grenades with him, and he shoved them deep into the wiring for luck. Then he retreated to a little alcove, and watched as the first troops approached the workstation.

He considered for a moment adopting some kind of heroic posture, or else saying something clever or impressive. But Gordon Freeman was ultimately a very low-key kind of guy, and so he just waited until as many Combine as possible were surrounding the console, shrugged, and then pressed the detonator, destroying the portal device and trapping himself on the Combine homeworld.

The room was filled with smoke, and his ears were ringing. He was trapped. He felt his legs might give way beneath him. He was trapped. He could feel the panic rising, and grabbed onto a metal beam for support. Breathing deeply, he assessed his situation, and gradually calmed himself. He had discovered the lost technology of the Borealis and destroyed it before the Combine could use it, like Eli had wanted, like Alyx had wanted. It was one of the only times he'd gone against Dr Kleiner's advice, but he thought his mentor would forgive him, eventually. He couldn't see a way of getting back, but he was alive and relatively healthy, and he could at least explore, and find out as much as he could about the mysterious occupying force. It was unlikely he'd ever get to tell anyone about it, or use the knowledge in any way; but the objective of science was the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, and he was nothing if not a scientist.

Gordon made his way through the structure, the Citadel of all Citadels, always aware he was being hunted. He hid and crept and occasionally killed, his footsteps leading him ever upwards. At first he thought he was doing it intentionally, trying to retrace his steps from Citadel 17; but after a while he realised he was feeling a pull, an almost subconscious compulsion. He stepped through one of the folding metal doorways and was struck by how high up he was. He was standing on a rocky projection, high above the ground below, facing a glass screen. He felt the familiar pressure in his ears, and clutched his crowbar for reassurance, but found that he couldn't move.

One of the giant sluglike Advisors moved into place behind the screen, and studied him. The pressure on his head was unbearable, but he couldn't flee from it, he was pinned in place to be scrutinized. There was an emotional component to the pain, too, a message that he felt rather than heard. He was all alone, surrounded by an entirely united force, whose sole objective was to destroy him. All humans were alone, weak, and he had just denied them the protection the Combine offered. He was helpless before the creature's conciousness. Eventually, it seemed to decide it had tormented him enough. The glass screen slid back, and he was being moved closer, suspended in the air. His jaw was slack, his limbs heavy; and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. He felt sick and weak with horror as the proboscis moved closer to his face.

When he had set off to explore the Citadel, he had taken his last grenade and carried it in his left hand, cocked. After Alyx had explained the Stalkers to him, he knew he definitely didn't want to be taken alive. That grenade slipped from his numb fingers now, and the pressure on the safety lever was released.

The blast threw him against a wall, and then he was falling, tumbling down the entire height of the chamber. He was vaguely aware of a horrible squealing sound, and the shattering of glass. He smashed through some kind of cover, then he hit the ground. There was a sickening crunch, which he was only able to relate to himself when agony shot through him. Something warm and wet was pattering to the ground all around him. The suit was bleeping, warning him his death was imminent with its usual disinterest. He tried to look around, but moving made the pain in his head and neck worse, so he lay still.

A weary peace began to steal over him. If he had to die, then an explosion on an alien planet that was quite possibly in a different dimension was a pretty awesome way for a scientist to go. He wondered if Alyx and Barney had made it back to the helicopter. The thought of Alyx made him smile. He'd done it for her, and he wondered if she would ever know. Then, as his life drained away and his thoughts grew simpler, he just remembered her good smell, and the weight of her head on his shoulder; and he wished that she was there with him as everything went dark.


	6. Deus ex Aperture

Gordon shifted, half awake, relishing the cool softness of his pillow. His heels caught on the end of the mattress as he stretched; he was getting taller, he would need a grown up bed soon. His movement disturbed Ninja, who meowed sleepily and then slipped down onto the floor with a reproachful thump. As the smell of bacon frying drifted up from the floor below, Gordon thought it was going to be a pretty good day.

He could hear a siren, it sounded like a fire truck or something, only instead of passing by in the street outside it just seemed to get louder and louder…

Gordon opened his eyes and groaned. The siren was still blaring, but much louder and closer by; and he was still lying in a shallow pool of foul-smelling, luke-warm water, still had a headache that felt as though an axe was buried in the back of his head; still on the Combine overworld. He couldn't tell how long he'd been there, but he thought he'd been awake a few times before; his consciousness rising and receding like waves on a beach as the HEV suit fought to stabilize him. Now he had washed up here; awake, alive, but in a world of hurt, and with a strong taste of iron in the back of his throat.

That was assuming he was alive. Shortly after the Vortigaunts had restored Alyx to life and he'd guided her out of the mines, he remembered her making a joke. Something about Antlions, how it couldn't be heaven if there were Antlions. At the time he'd assumed it was her usual defence mechanism, joking to hide how sick and scared she was, and apart from adding to the list of things he hated about Antlions, he hadn't given it much more thought. Now, though, he wondered. She had been about to die, and then when she woke up they had gone through a tunnel and emerged into the light of a peaceful forest, surrounded by low-lying cloud. It was enough to make anyone think of heaven, if they were already that way inclined.

Which didn't bode well for him, Gordon thought. Where he was it was hot, dark and definitely underground. What was more, he'd finally lost his glasses. Forget parables about soup spoons with long handles; that settled it. No glasses meant that this was definitely hell.

Gordon could still hear the klaxon, and footsteps moving back and forth above his head, accompanied by the voice of the Overwatch. Gordon couldn't make out what it was saying, but he was willing to bet that his name was in there somewhere, so he thought he'd better get moving. He had fairly well resigned himself to the fact that he was stuck on the overworld, but he still didn't want to die at the hands of the Combine. He felt Anticitizen One deserved to retire undefeated.

He tried to raise himself up, but found that he couldn't move his right arm, couldn't even feel it. He groped for his right shoulder with his other hand, then worked his way down. It was still all there, but it was utterly numb, and his hand was clenched tight into a fist. Prising his fingers apart, he was delighted to find his glasses. He must have clutched them instinctively to his face when the blast hit.

Gordon polished the lenses lightly with his thumb, gazing at his glasses with something approaching reverence. They'd been through so much together; he wished there was some way of expressing his gratitude. "Dear Lenscrafters (Seattle branch); I am writing to express my appreciation for your products. Not only have they survived a resonance cascade, an alien invasion and a guerilla campaign, but they also made me a hit with the ladies. Well, one lady anyway. Yours sincerely; (Dr) Gordon Freeman, PhD, current location unknown but definitely not good."

He surprised himself with a short burst of barely suppressed laughter, the harsh sound echoing around the chamber. The HEV suit had stabilized him, but he'd lost a lot of blood, and he felt very lightheaded. Slipping on his glasses, the familiar slight pressure on his nose rather comforting, he saw why. As the heads up display came into focus, a single orange digit appeared on the edge of his vision… 3. He was amazed he was still alive, and horrified to think about what he must look like beneath the suit.

The footsteps above his head seemed to draw slightly closer, and he wondered if they'd heard him laughing. He dragged himself towards the wall, his arm trailing uselessly behind him, then worked his way along it, trying to put distance between himself and the shaft he'd fallen down. He found a vent cover, and jabbed at it ineffectively, wielding the crowbar with his left arm. Eventually it fell away, and he pulled himself inside. Crossing the floor had exhausted him, and he rested, feeling oddly secure in the dark enclosed shaft. He knew most people would think it bizarre, but vents held happy memories for him. Exploring the hidden secrets of the MIT campus with Dave P, his usual tunnelhacking companion; Dave P, who had been thinking about taking a job at Aperture. Wriggling through the vents at Black Mesa and dropping smoothly into Dr Kleiner's office, sometimes treating himself to a cup of his mentor's excellent coffee before pulling the shade up and waving happily to Barney through the glass panel in the door.

Thinking of Barney made him think once again of Alyx. She generally had some teasing comment to make as he disappeared off into the walls, but that was a thing of the past for him now. Gordon knew a lot of guys liked to act cynical about love, but he'd never been among them; he'd had his parents' example before him growing up as proof of concept. He'd just never expected it to happen to him; he knew most people considered him slightly odd, and to be honest he suspected Alyx did too, but she seemed to like it for some reason. His love for Alyx had become like a physical part of him, a part that ached now, the way his head and his ribs and his stomach ached. He wrapped his good arm around himself, closed his eyes and allowed himself to whimper a little, pain and loneliness sweeping through him as he lay in the dark.

Eventually, he felt able to go on again, comforting himself with the thought of what he'd achieved. Alyx might never know it, but the way he'd opened to the Combine through the resonance cascade was now closed again. And if he was going to be stuck on the overworld, he might as well get some payback for the previous 20 years. What with his newly discovered talent for sabotage and his innate ability to cause explosions, he thought he could cause the Combine quite a lot of trouble before they caught him. Working his way through the tunnel, he felt a gradual upward slope, and eventually noticed a patch of light ahead of him. Peeking out through the grate, he saw what looked like a storeroom, deserted. Gordon considered his options. If this was an area the Combine kept supplies, then there were likely to be medkits around, maybe even a charger. He knew he was living on borrowed time while he was here, but at least if he powered his suit up, he would be doing so in comfort and style. It was taking a risk, but he could hardly just stay up in the vents until he died of… well, whatever it was he would die of. The suit was out of power, so it probably wasn't feeding him.

That thought decided him, and he knocked the grille away from the opening. It hit the floor with a loud crash, and he waited for a few moments to see if he'd attracted any attention. The room remained empty, so he rolled out sideways and dropped into the room. His legs wouldn't support his weight and he fell heavily onto his side. Like a cat, he thought to himself, and surprised himself with another burst of giggles. Dragging himself to his feet, he knew he _really_ needed to find a medkit. The first few cupboards he tried were bare, so he switched his attention to the bank of lockers on the opposite wall. One was locked, so he took his crowbar to the padlock, operating on the Calhoun Principle that anything which was well-protected was likely to be worth having. The cabinet contained another of the oddly shaped guns, but this one was blue instead of orange. Gordon's curiosity was stirred once again, and he pulled out the gun, grunting softly at how awkward it felt to use it left handed. Maybe it would make more sense on the world where it must have been manufactured. He pointed at the nearest wall, and fired.

In fact, it was the furthest from making sense that Gordon thought he'd ever been. Peering closely at what had appeared on the wall before him, his first thought was to wonder whether he'd fallen and hit his head. Well he had, obviously, several times; but he'd never seen anything like this before. He considered it for a long time, and then cautiously stuck his hand out and through. The cold arctic air was a shock after the warm humidity of the overworld. Nothing bad seemed to happen to his arm, so he ventured his head. He thought, he was almost certain, that he was back in the dry dock. He pulled himself through completely, cautious to avoid the blue firey edges of the opening. There was the cube, the cabinets, and the door with its little black stencils.

Gordon turned to consider the opening he'd just passed through. From this side the edges looked orange. This was fantastic, and insane. He fired the blue gun again, placing another opening adjacent to the orange one. Now they both appeared to open into the laboratory. He stood in front of one, waved his left hand out in front of the other, and saw his own black rubber gauntlet waving back at him. Bending sideways so that he could look directly through the other opening, he could now see his own torso, craning off to one side. He felt his jaw slacken, his eyes like saucers, his pulse pounding in his ears. Oh, this was so unfair… the most fantastical, unbelievable, so-wrong-it's-right phenomenon he had ever encountered, which in his career was saying something; and yet he was so lightheaded he doubted he'd be able to remember a grocery list, let alone get down to some serious Gedanken. He'd have to take the devices with him; and he quickly retrieved the other gun from the cupboard where he'd left it, clipping them both to his suit. As soon as he got back to White Forest he was going to spend some quality alone time with these devices, right after spending some quality alone time with Alyx.

Gordon started. Alyx was waiting for him on the ship, less than a few hundred yards away, and if that crazy A.I. thing was still alive… He burst through the door and down the hallway, dragging himself along the wall as fast as he could at a shambling half-gallop which put him worryingly in mind of a Zombine. When he reached he door to the gangway it was locked, and he gave a little groan of fear. He headed along to check the plant room, and found that the walls had been utterly stripped of the locking equipment, which lay destroyed on the floor below. Dark scorch marks and bullet holes in a pattern he had come to recognize as rapid fire decorated the room. Gordon allowed his spirits to rise slightly. Unlike the previous, somewhat half-hearted attempt to disable the locks, this bore all the hallmarks of an Alyx Vance solution. He had to be sure though; he'd have to find another way onto the ship.

As soon as Gordon left the shelter of the dry dock he knew it was a mistake. He was frightened by how frail he felt, as the cold wind he'd been so impervious to now seemed to blow right through him. The Combine structure loomed in the distance, and he made his way towards it, struggling in the snow, and remembering how fleetly he'd crossed the distance before. It seemed to take forever, but finally he was inside. The buildings had appeared deserted from the outside, but he listened cautiously for a moment before setting off. He soon saw what he'd been looking for mounted on the wall ahead, the familiar blue glow beckoning to him. Gordon had often wondered why the Combine should use the symbol of the International Red Cross instead of their own language on the aid points, but right then he couldn't care less. Clutching at the box for support, he connected his suit, and entirely failed to stifle a loud groan of relief as the nanomachines, cytokines and amino acids began surging through him. He drained the box to the dregs, watching as the display climbed before his eyes, finally stalling at around 40. Being at 40 wasn't normally great. While 90 made him think of spending time in a meeting or a crowded train surrounded by people coughing and sneezing, and that irritable feeling of knowing he was coming down with something, anything below 50 normally made him feel tired and sore, like he was moving through treacle. But right now, compared to 3, being at 40 felt like he was sitting in a hot tub with a glass of champagne. Moving much more easily, he headed on, looking for a charging station, only to round a corner and suddenly find himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

Barney was pale and unshaven, his hat pulled down low over his ears, but he clutched his rifle with grin determination. As his eyes met Gordon's, though, he relaxed and broke into a huge grin.

"Gordon!" He stepped forward and they grabbed each other into a rough hug. Barney had always made a great deal of the fact that he was able to lift Gordon off his feet, while his friend was unable to return the favour. They had never tried it with the HEV suit on, but Gordon wondered if Barney was going to attempt it now. "I knew I'd be seeing you again." Finally, they broke off, and Barney cocked his head towards the direction Gordon had arrived in. "I've arranged us some transportation." He headed for the exit, leaving Gordon confused in his wake, searching the corridor behind Barney with his eyes.

"Where's Alyx?"

Gordon thought Barney looked a little uncomfortable. "She went back with the others."

"But she's ok?" He caught up with Barney as they left the building.

"Yeah, yeah, she's fine. She just couldn't stand to watch."

"Watch what?"

Barney pulled something from his pocket. "Watch this." He pressed his thumb to the object, and with a mighty roar, flames appeared and began to pull the Borealis apart. There was a louder bang, and the shockwave knocked them both to the ground. They shielded their heads and huddled together as pieces of debris began to land around them. The dry dock caught and began to collapse in on itself, crashing onto the deck of the ship and splitting it down the middle. Soon it was amazing how little was left. Barney whooped, then caught Gordon's eye and grinned apologetically.

"Yeah, we probably shoulda have stayed indoors for that." Gordon got to his feet, his mind reeling, bursting with strong emotion.

"But Alyx… she's… we… had a fight." Gordon knew as soon as he'd said it that it utterly failed to convey the gravity of the situation, and indeed, Barney looked sympathetic but also slightly amused.

"Don't worry, Gordon, she'll come around when she sees you."

"But if she knew you were going to," he gestured at the remains of the ship, "_that_, then… Barney, she must think I'm dead!"

A look of concern spread over Barney's honest face then, but it was soon replaced by a more positive demeanour.

"Well then, she'll come around even quicker. Now c'mon, Gordon, you'll like this." He turned and lead the way around the side of the building. With a silent gesture of frustration and disbelief, Gordon followed.

Barney was standing beside a large SnowCat, the cabin warm and inviting, the platform laden with ammunition, medkits and drums of fuel. Barney was right, he did like it.

"You drive, I'll shoot," said his friend, climbing into the passenger seat. Gordon was about to follow, but couldn't help looking back for a second. The superstructure where he'd left Alyx was now a crumpled mess of steel, and the wall of the dry dock where he'd made his portals had vanished altogether. Part of him wanted to go back, to see if they were still there, hanging suspended in nothingness, but Barney called down to him, impatient.

"Come on, we're not getting any younger." Barney looked at him sideways as he pulled himself up into the cabin. "Well, maybe you are." Gordon tried frantically to think of something to say, but Barney just chuckled. "Don't worry about it man, I know you woulda explained it by now if you coulda. Let's get moving, there's a bowl of headcrab stew back at White Forest with my name on it." Seeing Gordon's horrified expression, he continued. "It's not that bad… Same kind of texture as that bean curd stuff you get in Chinese food. Say what you like about Vortigaunts, they work wonders in the kitchen. Now drive, Gordon. Speaking of the Vortigaunts, there's some stuff I need to tell ya…"

Gordon put the snowmobile into gear, and felt himself relaxing as they moved off, enjoying the sound of his friend's voice sweeping over him as the vehicle's tracks ate up the miles between himself and Alyx, and always aware of the portal devices clinking at his back.


	7. Wavefunction Collapse

"…So we made it through the suburbs ok, and for a while we thought we were home and dry. But then the portal storms hit, threw us right off the track. So we started walking, but a couple of the guys were pretty badly hurt. The Combine were on the move all around us; no way we would have made it through without the Vorts. They took care of the wounded, and the rest of us joined up with 'em; went hunting Shu'ulathoi." The alien word sounded even more fantastical in Barney's accent, as he grinned across at Gordon. "I even managed to take one out myself. Guess that puts me back on top of the league, huh?"

Gordon was tempted to reply with the details of his own recent trip to the overworld, but then he decided to let Barney have that one. After all, there were much more pressing concerns on his mind.

"Barney, when Alyx left, she wasn't… injured, was she?"

"No, she was fine. There was some sort of crazy computer thing going on, so she had to jump ship. She came back over here and helped us mop up the last of the Combine." This begged a further question, and it must have shown on his face. "Angelique was pretty badly hurt though. We had to get her back home, so Alyx had to go be copilot."

"Was she upset?"

"Course she was. But she's seen you pull off some pretty impressive stuff in the past. Plus her and her dad were pretty close to the Vorts, and you know the stuff they say about you." Gordon frowned. He didn't know, actually. But he let his friend talk, having learned from past experience that it was sometimes easier to just glean the information he needed from the flow of loquacity, than to try and interrupt with questions. "I couldn't believe it either, at first. I mean you're one of the clumsiest guys I ever knew, unlucky as hell, and kinda scrawny too…"

"Thanks?"

"But then Eli and Isaac told me more about exactly what happened at Black Mesa. And when you showed up in City 17, and I saw some of the stuff you did… and it's not just the stuff you did directly. Everyone was on such a high, just because they believed you were you."

"I _am_ me."

"You know what I mean. There's something going on with you, Gordon."

Gordon could feel his face fall as he focused his attention on the snowy plains ahead. It was bad enough when people he'd never met were hailing him as a saviour, but Barney, whose presence in City 17 he had clung to as the one familiar constant, who had talked to him throughout the horrendous fighting as if they were back at Black Mesa and it was just another dash to be first in line at the cafeteria… his best friend, who was now old enough to be his – no, let's not _ever_ go there. He could feel himself trembling, and breathing more rapidly. Barney evidently noticed something as well, and he placed his hand on Gordon's shoulder.

"Let's take five, I could use some food."

They sat with their backs to the huge tracked tyres, using the snowmobile as a shelter from the wind. Barney scanned the area, placed his rifle beside him in easy reach, and gave a sigh of contentment as he opened his ration pack. Gordon watched out of the corner of his eye, still marveling at how routine this all appeared to his friend. He wondered how many times he'd had to leave his base not knowing if he was coming back, how many times he'd fired his rifle, how many times he'd seen someone die. And then Gordon appeared out of nowhere, and seemingly within days the Citadel was falling...

Barney could always tell when Gordon was brooding. He was eating some kind of spread directly from the tube, and he turned to Gordon, smacking his lips and grimacing.

"If you could have anything in the world to eat, right now, what would it be?"

Gordon thought for a moment. "Macaroni and cheese."

"Hmm." Barney nodded thoughtfully, considering the proposition, as he repacked his kit and pulled himself back into the cab. "A good white sauce _is_ one of the hallmarks of a competent cook, and it's not something we've really been able to replicate in a post-Combine world. It's weird though," he continued as Gordon gunned the engine and they set off, "it's the cheap synthetic stuff I really miss. You know, the kind of stuff where it takes a whole industrial complex just to make a can full of sugary crap. The day I get to eat Miracle Whip is the day I'll know we've won. And I could go for some Pop-Tarts, and a hotdog, and key lime pie…"

Thinking of the time prior to the resonance cascade, even just the food, always brought a deep sense of unease in Gordon, and he shifted, feeling the portal devices pressing into his leg, remembering their awesome effect. To him it was still so recent; he suspected that a blood test would find he still contained e-numbers. And yet he had been away for so long… Relative to an observer, he had been gone 20 years, but relative to himself, he had been thrown into the future; and the same thing had happened to him and Alyx at Nova Prospekt. Was the stasis he experienced just another version of Dr Kleiner's slow teleport? And if he could go forward, might it also be possible to go back?

Now Aperture had developed a means of punching holes directly through to the Combine universe, without the need for such massive, destructive releases of energy as resonance cascades and portal storms, and yet also seemingly without the need to relay around Xen. Might it be possible to cross to another universe altogether, one where another Gordon Freeman had slept through his alarm, or where he'd had the flu, or where he'd slipped and the dirty yellow crystal had smashed into radioactive shards and dust, scattered across the floor of the chamber? Would this reality vanish as though it had never been, or would he simply vanish from it, abandoning Alyx and Barney exactly as he would if the Grey Man decided to take him back, the fate he was desperately hoping to avoid…

He was jolted from his thoughts as the snowmobile scraped over the ground. Looking around, Gordon thought the snow seemed brittle and more icy, and he could see the dark green of fir trees dotted throughout the snow.

"…Deep pan pizza, nachos, sweet potato with marshmallows. Did we just hit a rock? Looks like we're gonna have to start – SHIT!"

They both ducked reflexively as a stream of bullets shattered the windshield. Combine Elite troops, their armour providing excellent camouflage against the snow, were spreading out in front of them. "Run 'em down, Gordon!" Barney yelled, whooping with delight as he did so. Gordon saw the fierce joy on his face as he sighted out of the window at the troops trying to flank them.

An APV overtook them on the right, it's tyres churning the snow, and slewed directly across in front of them. The collision was unavoidable, so Gordon jumped out to the side and rolled, breathless from the impact, snow flying up in his face. He rose to his knees and used the grav gun to lift one of the barrels of fuel from the back of the snowmobile, then turned and launched it into the hatch at the back of the personnel carrier just as it opened. The liquid flames expanded and filled the compartment, and he heard the digitized curses and screams, smelled the burning rubber and flesh, but he couldn't care less for his enemies at that point as he scrambled to his feet and ran around the wrecked vehicles, looking for Barney. There were more troops and they seemed to be converging on a point. With their backs to him, it was easy enough to snatch a rifle with the grav gun. A few bullets pinged from his armour, but he disregarded them and made swift work of the soldiers that fired them. Pausing to catch his breath, Gordon listened for the sounds of more troops approaching. Scanning the area, he dropped his gun with shock and began to run as he saw Barney, lying on his back, leg pinned under one of the snowmobile tracks.

Barney was evidently still alive and awake, as he brought his rifle to bear on the sound as Gordon came running over. "What happened?" he gasped as he dropped to a crouch beside his friend. He knew it was a stupid question, and Barney grinned and shook his head. He reached out; clasping Gordon's hand in his own, and his face grew serious.

"Something I gotta tell you, Gordon, shoulda told you a long time ago." He took a deep breath as if to gather his strength, and Gordon leaned closer, hanging on his every word. "When you're fighting, do you ever shout, "Back off man, I'm a scientist"? Cause you know, you really should…" He relaxed his head back onto the snow then, and closed his eyes, but Gordon could see that he was grinning, and in spite of himself he grinned back. "C'mon, Gordon, put a tourniquet on and get me outta here." Gordon nodded, fumbling to improvise a tourniquet from the strap of one of the weapons. He was fighting the urge to be sick.

"The snowmobile is too heavy for the grav gun… I'll have to dig the snow from around your leg and then pull you out."

"Well thank God for your subtle understanding of physics… Ow! Motherf... If you're gonna do that, at least get me a medkit first." Gordon retrieved the least damaged-looking medkit from the cargo area, snapped the top off the vial, and applied the green liquid to Barney's mangled leg. His friend hissed and groaned as it sank into the wound, but Gordon saw a little colour return to his face. "Ok, now do what you gotta do."

Gordon bent to his task, scraping with his fingers in the dense packed snow. Checking back, he noticed that Barney had closed his eyes again, and he reached out and shook him by the shoulder.

"You have to stay awake."

"Talk to me… keep me distracted."

"Um… no, you talk to me." Barney laughed at that, a harsh coughing sound.

"Typical Gordon."

"No, but that way I can tell you're awake without having to look at your face."

"I know, I getcha…" He gestured for Gordon to carry on digging, gave a great sigh, and began. "Ok… what song do you want at your funeral?" Gordon made an unconscious sound of distress at that, and his face must have shown his distaste. "No, come on man, I'm curious."

"Uh… actually, I think I'd like this jazz piece I heard once, no words, but I always liked it. It was kind of sad but uplifting at the same time, you know?"

"Figures, but nowadays, you've gotta have something enough people remember the words to. I always wanted An American Trilogy. I love that quiet bit where it's just the flute, then those drums and trumpets kick in… that's how I wanna go out. " He pointed for extra emphasis. "And I want to be buried. No cremation."

"Really?" Gordon replied. "I sort of like the idea of cremation. All your potential energy gets released, and your molecules just float off and get used for something else…" Barney's face showed exactly what he thought of that idea. "Actually, I was always interested in the idea of a sky burial. It's a Tibetan thing, they would take the body and attach it to a platform on top of a pole, and just wait till the vultures pick it clean."

"Man, that's the grossest thing I ever heard!" He thought for a moment. "You could have an antlion burial."

They both laughed at that, and soon enough Barney was talking again, in the familiar twang that had formed the soundtrack to Gordon's life at Black Mesa, sharing jokes and gossip and whatever else Barney had on his mind that day. His voice was so comforting that Gordon actually found himself relaxing slightly, despite the grimness of the situation, and he despised himself for it, knowing that he should be the one comforting Barney, not the other way round.

Soon Gordon reached a point where he thought he had exposed enough of the leg to free Barney; and not a moment too soon, as his friend was definitely slipping, his voice growing weaker and his conversation more random.

"Remember the day it happened?" Gordon nodded absently, focusing on his task. There was no need to ask what day he meant. "He was there then. He looks like a fed, but he's not a fed. Watch out for him, Gordon…"

Astonished, he grasped Barney under the shoulders, but his friend was already on to a different topic. Gordon was about to pull when he heard an unpleasant sound behind him. Whirling around, he saw three of the dirty white husky creatures, edging their way forward slowly, their lips drawn back to reveal their teeth. Gordon felt a surge of horror and then, grasping his crowbar, gave quite an impressive snarl of his own as he swung for the nearest. He caught it with one of the sharp edges, pulling it to the ground, and beat it until it stopped moving, and then he moved to stand over Barney, breathing heavily and switching the crowbar from hand to hand.

The remaining creatures simply withdrew to a more prudent distance, and waited. Gordon knew he was a scientist through and through, lacking in the warrior spirit that Barney seemed to have been forced to develop and that Alyx was probably born with; yet at the same time he knew he could kill in order to protect his friends, if not happily, then - which was almost worse - easily. But now his anger was rapidly being replaced with despair. He could kill a hundred of these strange creatures now, but he couldn't do anything about the cold and the blood loss that were affecting Barney. He heard a rustling sound, and the sound of several footsteps moving closer and closer, and he renewed his grip on the crowbar.

A party of Vortigaunts emerged from a grove of trees beside them, carrying pine torches. They soon sent the predatory creatures scampering with their blasts of green energy. They held one of those multi-layered conversations that seemed to involve all of them talking at once, and then moved swiftly, fashioning a litter from the remains of the two damaged vehicles and lifting Barney onto it, their long limbs oddly delicate as they handled him.

"We shall attend to the Barney when we reach shelter," one of them called to Gordon. "Come with us, Free Man. There is much to communicate!"

Gordon ran with them, moving swiftly through the darkness, the torches crackling as they pulled the stretcher forward. Barney was gazing around, dazed, and Gordon tried to stay in his line of sight. Soon, they emerged into a small village at the edge of the tundra, a few ruined shacks surrounding a large central fire. More Vortigaunts assembled, and a human medic came sprinting over to Barney, clutching his pack. Gordon was lead towards a building on the far side of the clearing.

"The Freeman must come with us. A choice is to be made."

"Yes, yes, a choice, most important," the others chimed in. Gordon had a theory that these repetitive interjections and confirmations were the parts of Vortigaunt speech that were normally communicated via the "vortal inputs", and that they were only voiced aloud when they were speaking English for his benefit. Although annoying, he supposed it was rather sweet of them really, and so he followed them into the hut, where a ring of Vorts sat surrounding a smaller fire.

"Ah, the Freeman." A sigh of appreciation from a Vortigaunt whose skin was dry and wrinkled, making him seem older than the other smooth and sleek beings. "When first we saw you in corporeal form, we knew you were the one foretold. Your name is a most excellent confirmation of this. You have freed us from the shackles of our master, and closed the gaping wound in the vortessence. And yet a prophecy fulfilled under duress is no prophecy at all. And so now we give you the choice, to oscillate, or remain." It threw a handful of something onto the fire. "Breathe deeply, Freeman! Your ability to survive the extract is far greater than that of most humans, another attribute you share with vortikind."

Gordon wasn't sure whether to ask exactly what they meant by survive, or to explain to them that his surname wasn't exactly that unusual, or just to get the hell out of there. But as he rose to his feet, he was surprised to see that his body remained sitting cross-legged on the ground with his Vortigaunt companions. He could see the back of his own head, a clotted dark red wound behind his right ear, his hair speckled with a pale green crusty substance. His face bore the expression he used to sleep through meetings, the eyebrows slightly raised to feign interest, but the eyes themselves at least two-thirds of the way closed. Gordon had been on the research-publish-conference treadmill for most of his life, with little time for partying, and so he entirely lacked the vocabulary to describe what he was experiencing, but it was cetainly interesting. He felt deliciously light, and his thoughts danced through his head. Strings, branes and vortal cords, it all made so much sense. He laughed, and following a short delay he saw his body laugh as well. Then the Vortigaunt broke in.

"Attend now, Freeman." Gordon settled back down, feeling scolded, like a kid in church. "See the vortessence." He could see _something_, flowing past him although he was outside it, but as he moved his head forward something came over him, and suddenly there was a voice in his head, one that was strangely familiar…

…he was excited, and nervous, but also so hungry… hopefully Barney would remember to save him some pancakes from the cafeteria… after this sample was done he could eat, and then he'd go see Dr Kleiner and ask him about the implications of Everett's 1961 work for their theories, and Dr Kleiner would make him a cup of his awesome coffee… but maybe he should just go straight back to his dorm, he had a lot of writing up to do, hopefully this time he'd get co-author credit and not just assistant, the missed meals and the tubes that no man should have to endure had to be worth co-author... but tubes aside, this HEV suit was badass… why did everyone look so nervous this morning? And would the pancakes be buttermilk or buckwheat…

Gordon was overwhelmed with compassion for that young idiot, going so blithely to his doom. He pulled his head back instinctively and shook his head as though he had been immersed in water, an impression strengthened when he realised with a gasp that he'd been holding his breath. He turned to the old Vortigaunt, mouth agape. The creature appeared to wear a hint of a smile, as it gestured further downstream with its hand.

"The future is less clear to perceive…"

…there were no words in his head this time, just feelings… tiredness, sorrow and regret, but also pride in his accomplishments, and contentment, a complete lack of the anxiety that had been a part of him for as long as he could remember… a warm sense of responsibility for Alyx…

Snapping back to the present, Gordon knew exactly what he had to do. He got to his feet and walked out into the night, feeling as though he was gliding, passing the Vortigaunts and humans sleeping by the fire without a stir. At the edge of the clearing, he placed the portal guns on the ground, and raised his crowbar.

He thought back to Eli's desperation that he destroy the Borealis and everything on it, contrasting it with Dr Kleiner's enthusiasm to learn what was on board the ship and whether they could use it. Prior to the resonance cascade, Gordon had been very much in the Dr Kleiner mould. He was fed, housed and cared for by first his parents, then his college and finally his employer, leaving him with nothing more demanding to do than to think about physics. Gordon was no longer crippled by guilt over his inadvertent role in the Combine invasion, but he still knew he could no longer afford to be the way he had back then. People were relying on him, and there was a beautiful woman whose happiness and well-being were more important to him than anything he could have imagined in his old life. What he had with Alyx was not worth risking on the kind of experiments with portals that he'd been considering, the kind of experiment that had caused this whole thing in the first place. What was more, he wanted the chance to become that slightly older, wiser guy that he had glimpsed one day. Gordon thought he seemed kind of cool.

Breen's words echoed in his head once again as he crushed the guns beyond all recognition. With a slight twinge of guilt, he imagined the look on Dr Kleiner's face if he could see him as he scooped up the remains of the circuitry and the inner wiring, intending to throw them in the fire. But as he turned they slipped through his fingers in shock when he saw him standing there, the fed who was not a fed, his eyebrows slightly raised as he surveyed Gordon's handiwork.

* * *

After a chapter that was all Gordon, it's always nice to get the Barney in there and write some dialogue :D First time I've really written Vortigaunts too, so I would really appreciate some feedback on this one. Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading and leaving comments so far.

Will Barney survive? What does the G-man want now? And what is the green crap in Gordon's hair? Stay tuned to find out!


	8. Railbound

"This… was indeed unfore_seen_." Gordon froze, caught on the hop, hovering vulnerably between his usual plane of existence and the heightened purple-Vortigaunt state of being. Not that it really made any difference, he reminded himself; he was always vulnerable to the Grey Man, even when he was feeling confident, tooled up with a fully charged suit; which tended to be the exact occasions the Man made one of his blink-and-you'll-miss-him appearances, as if to remind Gordon that his life wasn't quite his own. This, however, felt like it was going to be one of his direct interventions, up close and personal. The world faded to blackness around Gordon and he became rooted to the spot. Tears of fear and anger stung his eyes, but he was unable even to lift a hand and rub them away. As the Man spoke, scenes appeared that were torn directly from Gordon's thoughts and memories in a way that felt like a violation, disparate images forced together to illustrate his words. Gordon could feel sweat pouring down his back, and his tense, twanging muscles screamed to be able to shift.

"Conformity and oppression… it strengthens their hand in the short term, yet in _time_, their reduced capacity for abstract thought may prove their downfall. Their failure to acquire the technology they sought will have far greater…" Here he interrupted himself with a sound of suppressed amusement, his lips twisting cynically.

"…but what concern could these higher matters possibly hold for you, Mister Freeman, given your more pressing concerns? You have fulfilled my employers' basic requirements, yet I had rather higher hopes, given your previous destructive tendencies… in short, Mister Freeman, you're not supposed to be here. _Yet._ However, with certain restrictions still in place…" he glanced here in what Gordon assumed was the direction of the Vortigaunts "…I am forced to pursue a policy of watchful waiting." He straightened his tie. "I want you to return to White Forest, to continue to protect my investment." At that point an image of Alyx appeared, beautiful and cherished, and Gordon gave an internal groan of frustration. Was it really necessary for the Man to hijack his attention in this highly disconcerting manner, if the only purpose was to impart such unnecessary instructions? The very idea that he might have hesitated in the slightest to escort the injured Alyx to White Forest, or to return to her now, was further proof, as if any were needed, that Gordon's employer wasn't human. But the Grey Man went on regardless. "And she will require your protection; homogeneity may sometimes have its… advantages." He stepped into a door that suddenly appeared, the bright white outline of a door. "Watchful waiting, Mister Freeman, watchful… _wait_ing." The door closed, leaving Gordon alone and terrified in the dark. Please, no, he thought, oh please please please…

And he opened his eyes and found himself sitting on the ground, with his legs stretched out ahead of him and his back propped haphazardly against the wall of one of the ruined houses of the village. The air was crisp and clear, and he could smell smoke from the fire and hear people murmuring as they began to go about their days. Gordon got gingerly to his feet and stretched, realizing with something approaching shock that he felt good. Not just good, but amazing; mentally sharp and fully rested. He checked his stats and found that he was back at 100%; and the Vorts had even given his suit a quick power-up. Looking up, he saw one of them ambling by. It seemed somewhat taller than the norm, and he thought it might have been among the rescue party that had found Barney and himself the night before. It gestured for him to follow with a claw.

"To the south, the Barney Calhoun." As they walked through the village together, Gordon was aware of small groups of people watching him, and he heard his name muttered with the mixture of excitement and disbelief that he'd come to loathe. He glanced at the Vortigaunt, and it shook its head in that way they had, like a dog trying to shake off water, and Gordon thought it might be trying to distract him as it continued. "As well as an honoured companion of the Freeman, the Barney is a great teller of stories, a position of great importance to Vortikind. We have obtained much new information on the life of the Freeman."

Gordon picked up his pace slightly, dreading to think exactly what that might involve. He found Barney along with two other Resistance members, crouching over a map. Barney was nodding and listening intently to his companion as the man pointed to the landscape spread before them. He caught sight of Gordon out of the corner of his eye, and straightened with a grin on his face.

"We're on the home stretch now, Gordon! And check this out." He walked a couple of paces back and forth. "They fixed me up pretty good." The villager beside him straightened up also, and placed his hand on Barney's shoulder.

"You've got our frequencies; send word when you make it back to base. Then we'll know that the route between here and White Forest is passable. Not that I expect you'll have any problems," he continued as he turned to Gordon with a big keen smile. "It's an honour to meet you, Dr Freeman!" Gordon couldn't help wincing and scanning the sky as he shook the proffered hand. Hadn't these people learned by now that every time they talked about how awesome it was that he'd shown up, and how much better things were going to be now that he was around, it was the cue for a gunship or a squad of Combine to attack?

Barney seemed to sense his eagerness to get going, as he fastened his pack and slung it onto his shoulder.

"C'mon, Gordon. I want to see if Alyx kisses you or kicks your ass." Gordon raised an eyebrow at that, but couldn't help smiling as he fell into step with Barney as they passed through the village's southern gates.

"Make haste, Freeman, and return to the Alyx Vance! Without her, we cannot persevere," a Vortigaunt called after them.

"Yeah, like you needed telling," Barney muttered to Gordon. "Anyway. Southeast of here there's a railway line. If we follow that we should intersect with the logging tracks at White Forest."

After they had been walking for a little while, Barney turned to Gordon, a curious expression on his face. "Were you asleep back there?"

Gordon wasn't sure himself. It shouldn't have been possible while he was wearing the HEV suit; something to do with hormones and circadian rhythms. And he hadn't been asleep, not for most of the night anyway. But he didn't feel able to put into words what had happened with the Vortigaunts, and as for the Grey Man… Barney had alluded to him earlier, how he had seen him at Black Mesa; yet he had only done so at death's door. Suddenly Gordon wondered if Barney too had fallen under the Man's control, tasked with assisting Gordon in the same way he himself was tasked, and as unable and unwilling to talk about it as he was. He thought he saw tension in his friend's eyes, and checked himself. What could they both do about it now, or even at all? Gordon resolved not to raise the subject with Barney until they were both safely back at White Forest, preferably a little drunk.

"No, I was just… resting my eyes."

Barney looked doubtful, but as he was about to respond, he stopped suddenly and tilted his head.

"Can you smell that?" He broke off to one side, moving deeper into the trees and forcing his way through a hedge. Gordon followed him cautiously, and came to a halt in front of a clump of trees, heavily laden with green and golden fruit. Barney breathed deeply and grinned at Gordon. Gordon could smell them too, now, and the sweet fresh smell combined with the slightly tangy odour from the fermented windfalls made his mouth water. Barney was in among the branches, grabbing all the apples he could reach and dropping it into his rucksack, one already in his mouth. The delight with which he reacted to the fresh fruit made it all too clear what a rare occurrence this was, and that in turn gave Gordon an idea. He scanned the trees, stepping round them slowly until he saw the best apple, small and red and shiny. He plucked it and polished it carefully with his fingers. "What're you doing?" Barney called. "You know you can't eat it."

Gordon stammered a little. "I'm… saving it. You know, for later. When I can eat it."

Oh, I get it." Gordon didn't like the knowing smile on Barney's face. He could feel his ears glowing, which was usually a sign his cheeks were too. After a few steps though, he was forced to stop and turn back. His HEV suit, eminently practical, was equipped with clips, straps and ammo pouches galore, but there was nowhere to store anything small and fragile, such as the gift he was holding now.

"Er… can I put this in your pack?"

The grin on Barney's face broadened. "Some men give flowers, some men give champagne… an apple? Seriously, Gordon, that's your secret?" He grumbled, but unfastened his pack, even showing Gordon how he wrapped the apple in his hat to protect it. "Don't worry, she'll love it. When you find an old farmhouse and the crops have survived… it's like buried treasure, you know? Fresh fruit and vegetables are so good… except pumpkins. Man am I sick of pumpkin. And don't get me started on watermelon…" They continued along the path, Barney's stream of invective punctuated occasionally by a crunching bite.

Eventually, they reached the train track. A razor train stood off to one side, its shape blunt and ominous against the grey sky. Barney lead the way towards it. As they reached the back of the train, a familiar sobbing moan broke out, accompanied by a rattling sound. They moved closer cautiously. Half a zombie was pulling its way towards them from under the train, tattered entrails the same colour as the ragged edge of its shirt, its claws scrabbling through the stones that were laid between the sleepers.

"Damn necrotics!" Barney exclaimed. Noticing Gordon's slightly raised eyebrow, a look of embarrassment spread across his face. "Sorry, force of habit." He raised his rifle and raked the pitiful creature with fire, putting its muscle fibres beyond use. The headcrab immediately leapt from its previous hosts shoulders, with such an air of ingratitude that Gordon took great pleasure in swinging his crowbar and crushing it against the side of the train.

"Well that was a textbook Calhoun-Freeman play," Barney declared, and held his fist out. Gordon bumped it absently, lost for a moment in the memory of the Calhoun-Freeman play (or Freeman-Calhoun maneuver, as he preferred to call it). Then he shook his head and climbed after Barney into the cab.

"Hope you don't mind if I drive this time," Barney said, as he drew a Combine disruptor from his pocket and began entering his codes to start up the train. Gordon gave a thumbs up and then let himself slide to the floor of the narrow cab, as the train lurchingly began to move. Barney settled beside him, but then grumbled with frustration as a loud, irregular banging broke out behind the door to the next compartment. "I suppose we'd better check that out..." Gordon nodded, and followed Barney as he got to his feet.

They slid the door open cautiously. This carriage was colder; a ventilation panel in the ceiling was missing, allowing the outside air in. It contained racks of the lozenge shaped metal containers used to transport prisoners, the kind that Gordon had hitched a ride on in the Citadel, and nearly every one contained a zombie. The howling and rattling they produced as they reached desperately for the two men was almost unbearable as it echoed around the confined space. Barney raised his rifle, and Gordon swung the machine gun he'd taken from the Combine troops into his hands. The shared a grim look, then went to work. Half way down the corridor, a previously unsuspected fast zombie burst between the racks and swung for Gordon. He hissed as the claws raked through his shoulder, noting with satisfaction that it had become stuck, allowing him to place the barrel of his rifle right up against the horrible leering skull and fire.

When the transport compartment was clear they returned to the front and slumped once more against the walls. Gordon felt exhausted, his head was spinning, and the smell of cordite and decaying flesh lingered in his nostrils. Barney leaned in, his voice concerned.

"You ok, Gordon? Your eyes… they're tiny."

"It's just the morphine, it'll wear off. Barney, why would the Combine be transporting zombies?"

Barney's voice could be oddly gentle when he wanted to be. "I don't think they were transporting zombies. Not at first."

Gordon groaned as the implication sank in, hugged his knees into his chest, and let his face sink forwards. His shoulder ached, and he felt sick. After a while he felt Barney touching his other shoulder, alternately squeezing it and thumping it lightly. He raised his head blearily and looked across at his friend.

"This is why we're fighting 'em, Gordon, so that shit like this stops. And hell, you've done a lot. Took down the Citadel, launched the satellite… whatever it was you did on the Borealis, that too. Now lighten up; I hear there's a hot chick waiting on you to bring her an apple." Gordon nodded, and Barney nodded back, holding Gordon's eyes for a moment before his eyes twitched, and his whole face lit up with an expression Gordon had come to dread.

"I tell you what, Gordon, I am sick. I am sick of these…"

"No, oh no…"

"… _so_ sick of these motherfie-ing zombies on this motherfie-ing train!"

Barney's jokes had a tendency to make him laugh in inverse proportion to their quality, and now Gordon laughed so hard tears came, helpless with relief as the combat tension left his body. He glanced across at his friend, who was looking smugly pleased with himself, and smiled. After the adulation of some of the Resistance, and the mysticism of the Vortigaunts, Barney's ability to make him feel like an ordinary guy again was wonderful. After all, he _was_ an ordinary guy. He had been chosen for the programme at Black Mesa, it was true, but only in the sense that he was highly qualified, young and healthy enough to wear the HEV suit, and a single man with no dependents; the kind of man who tended to get chosen for such things. There was nothing supernatural about it.

He recognized that Black Mesa had set him up, to a certain extent. There had been no real need for him to push the cart; the whole process could have probably been automated for the price of a couple of months' worth of his salary. But it gave his line managers deniability. If something went wrong (something relatively minor, obviously, not something on the scale of what actually_ had_ gone wrong), they would be able to say to the inevitable enquiry, "We expressed our concerns, your Honour, but Doctor Freeman was alone in the chamber and the decision to proceed was ultimately his." It also made him complicit, so that it would become harder and harder to voice his doubts, and he suspected that before long, he would have been part of the "survey teams", like the poor souls whose bodies he had encountered on his way to fight the Nihalanth.

Gordon felt slightly bitter about this, but his acknowledgement that he hadn't exactly made it difficult for them tempered the bitterness. His experiences since then had forced him to change; his decision about the portal guns proved that. He was aware that he was probably still being manipulated in some way, and part of him ached, or itched, with the knowledge that he might never understand exactly what had happened to him. But was what he was being asked to do, namely fight an oppressive occupying force that had unleashed horrors on his family and friends, not something he might have chosen to do anyway? And as for protecting and escorting Alyx… Gordon thought he could probably do that for the rest of his life. Like Barney, she had that ability to make him feel resolutely normal, and simultaneously as if he could achieve any of the difficult, dangerous things he set his mind to, not because he was the One Free Man, but because he was hers. But unlike Barney she also had deep golden brown eyes, a loving face, and a soft yet surprisingly strong body with curves in all the right places… he couldn't wait to get back to her. Gordon raised his head and stared out of the window as the landscape flashed past and the train carried him back towards the life he'd chosen.

The train emerged from a tunnel and brought them out into a familiar landscape of tall trees and sandy creeks. Barney slowed the train to a halt with a minimum of destruction, and they leapt down from the cab, stretching and breathing the pine scented air with appreciation after their confined journey. They set off down the path towards the base, each edging ahead of the other as they gradually began to walk faster and faster, until with a laugh they broke into a run and dashed for the fence, vaulting tree trunks and Strider legs in their path.

The man in the guard tower didn't notice them straight away; his attention appeared to be distracted by something happening in the compound beneath him. "Hey!" Barney called, a tone of irritation underlying the laughter in his voice. "Let us in! Didn't you see us coming?" To his credit, the man looked embarrassed, and hurried to operate the controls. Passing through the gate, Gordon noticed something odd. The rebels were separated into two groups, standing at opposite ends of the courtyard. There was enough movement of people eddying between the peripheries of the two groups for the separation to appear informal, but it was definitely there. One of the groups appeared pleased about something, while the others seemed almost angry. It was curious, but Gordon definitely had other priorities at that moment.

He wasn't the only one. There was the sound of heavy bounding footsteps, and the whine of servomotors, and then Gordon was grabbed around the waist and lifted from his feet. Twisting his head, he realised it was D0g, carrying him the way a running back carried a football. D0g rushed up the slope towards the building, and thrust Gordon towards a window. He raised his hands to shield his eyes as the pane shattered around him and he landed on the floor with a thump. Looking up cautiously, he saw Alyx. She was curled into the corner of the bed they had shared, and the shadows under her eyes were piteously deep and dark; but her grip on the gun she held aimed towards him was rock steady.

Gordon reached out and gently moved the barrel of the gun so it was pointing away from his face. Alyx's eyes never left his. The pink rims of her eyes and the hunched, cautious posture with which she held herself made his heart break, and he yearned to comfort her. He moved forward slowly and cautiously, but she gasped abruptly and then flew towards him, her arms tight around his waist, her face pressed into his breastplate in a way he was sure couldn't be comfortable for her. He encircled her gently; conscious of how soft and vulnerable she was, while he was all sharp angles and hard edges. But then she pushed away, and looked up at him in a way that was almost irritable.

"Come on Gordon, if you're gonna hug me, do it properly." She pulled his arms tightly around her, and he squeezed her against him, hard, like he'd always wanted to. He heard her groan, and he was worried he'd hurt her, but when he peeked down at her, she was smiling. "I imagined you coming back so many times… had to be sure it was really you." She sighed, and stepped back to examine him. He gazed back at her, anxious, intent; and she laughed. "Yep, definitely Gordon. Remember when we first met?" she continued. "The whole way there, I was telling myself I was just going to stay calm, you know, be skeptical, play it cool." She met his eyes with hers, and he was relieved to see that the golden sparks were beginning to return to her eyes. "Guess how long that lasted."

Gordon remembered back to the first time he saw her. His head had been throbbing, his chest tight with fear and confusion; but when he'd opened his eyes there had been no trash compactor, no hideously unfamiliar landscape, just her face, uniquely beautiful against the bleak urban backdrop. It had almost made the previous suffering seem worth it.

It occurred to him that this was probably the sort of thing women loved to hear, so he took a breath and went for it. "When we first met, I just thought it was worth getting hit in the head, if it meant I could see something like you every time I woke up."

"That could be arranged." She reached out and swatted him on the side of the head. He gave a yelp of protest and raised his hand to ward off further blows. "You used it, didn't you? On the Borealis?" He opened his mouth to explain himself, but she was distracted, staring at her fingers as she rubbed them together delicately. "What's this stuff in your hair?"

"Uh, I think it's Advisor juice."

The light was definitely back in her eyes then, as she pulled him to her and kissed him deeply. He relished the sweet softness of her lips, while making a mental note of the fact that lines like "hey baby, I just killed a giant alien slug" seemed to be much more to Alyx's taste. She was stroking the back of his neck, the most vulnerable part of his body while he was wearing the HEV suit, and the place only she was allowed to touch. He shivered with delight and deepened the kiss…

"Could you two possibly engage your higher cortical functions for five minutes? Only a rather critical situation has been developing here, and we need to resolve it!" They turned to find that they were no longer alone. Dr Magnusson and Dr Kleiner were in the doorway staring at them, contemptuous and astonished respectively; with Barney bringing up the rear.

"He's right, Gordon." Alyx kept her hands on his chest, but her face was serious once more. "It's bad."

* * *

**A/N: **thanks once again to my amazing beta KRSONMar, for some really interesting conversations that really helped me clarify some stuff.

Inspiration for the title comes from a great post on the forum, about the role of trains as a metaphor in fiction.

Flipping heck, my first ever chapter over 4000 words! :D Thanks to all my reviewers, please continue to leave your thoughts.


	9. Fissile Material

"It started after we got back from the Borealis. Well, I say that's when it started; the seeds were probably there all along, only people were too busy fighting and trying to stay alive. My dad must have kept it from me, to protect me…" Alyx gave a soft moan as she sat back onto the bed. Gordon didn't think she even realised she'd done it. He sat half-turned so he could face her, and gripped her hands gently in his; hating how cold they felt, and the complicated pain he saw in her face. He'd almost forgotten the presence of the others, but they piled into the room to hear Alyx's version of events. Gordon didn't think there could be anything more awkward than the sight of Dr Kleiner perching primly on the edge of the bed where he'd done things with Alyx that made his ears tingle a little even just thinking about them, but that was before Dr Magnusson sat down beside him. Barney leaned against the edge of the desk, as Alyx drew in a shaky breath and went on.

"So I was just coming down from checking on the people in sickbay when I heard them. People were celebrating the Borealis, talking about what had happened, I guess they were drinking… Jarrod started badmouthing you, and then this guy, he just… well, he said you'd saved his life Then he beat Jarrod pretty bad… he's in sickbay now too. We locked the guy up, but we had to use a store room, it's not like we have a prison, I mean we never needed one!" Her voice rose in despair, and he felt a sudden sizzle of empathy. His realization had come on waking up in City 17 after three days at Black Mesa, while hers had only just arrived; the realization that, after going through hell in an attempt to make things better, you were in fact still royally screwed, only in a whole different way.

Alyx's voice grew dull as she controlled herself and continued. "Then his friends got mad, I think he was a squad leader, and they started saying we didn't have any right, and it all just went…" She sighed, her face a picture of misery, and an ache went right through Gordon, leaving a heavy, dull feeling in the pit of his stomach that he recognised as rage. An unquenchable optimism about the future without the Combine had been a part of Alyx ever since he met her, and he felt a sudden desire to hurt the people who seemed to be trying to take it from her.

Dr Magnusson had been quiet for almost five minutes, and it appeared to be too much for him to take, as he promptly went into lecturing mode. "The Resistance has always been composed of three major strands. We Black Mesa survivors gradually formed links with the remaining scientific community across the globe. Simultaneously, we made contact with other groups, chiefly Special Operations and other military units who managed to remain outside the Combine's grasp." Gordon's ears pricked up at the mention of Special Ops. He remembered the carnage of Black Mesa after the Marines arrived; the young man with the thoughtful look in his eyes, who was all the more frightening because he couldn't simply be dismissed as a dumb grunt. It was obvious when he thought about it that the organization and the tactics of the Resistance fighters he'd seen would have had to come from somewhere, yet he still felt a shiver of unease. "Finally, there were the citizens local to the various Resistance installations, whom Eli insisted we liberate wherever possible, which_ I_ personally felt was drawing too much attention to ourselves… however, the benefits were undeniable," he added hurriedly as he caught sight of Alyx's glare. Gordon hid a small proud grin. Even Magnusson was scared of his girl.

"Initially, of course," Magnusson harrumphed as he went on, "the leadership of the movement was science-based, given our understanding of where the Combine had come from, and the failure of traditional ordnance in taking them down." There was a hint of smugness around his eyes, and Gordon thought he was remembering the Magnusson Device. "Now, however, we seem to be facing something of a military coup." He seemed to be uncertain how to continue, and as he glanced at Alyx once again, Gordon thought he understood. Disparate groups, with different opinions and attitudes and ways of life, held together only by their one common goal. Gordon would walk through fire for Dr Kleiner, but he knew his mentor was not the type to inspire confidence in fighting men. Conversely, Dr Magnusson was hardly likely to react well to orders barked in a military style. It would take a man like Eli to unite them all. Gordon groaned and shifted back in his seat, with a dull throbbing headache behind his eyes and a twist of grief in his gut

Barney snorted and leaned in. "I know these guys, Gordon. Been fighting alongside some of 'em. This is just… I dunno, people feeling uncertain. But, you know, Eli had a plan and we can just keep following it. Once you talk to them, they'll come around." Gordon felt something hard hit him in the back, and he realized it was the wall. He had scooted back across the bed as the realization hit him of where this was going. Magnusson was nodding his agreement.

"Yes, once the ever-popular Doctor Freeman addresses the masses, we should be able to get the program back on track." He stood, along with Kleiner. Even Alyx was smiling again and Gordon loved and hated the faith she placed in him. He shook his head furiously at Barney. Gordon had faked a toothache to get out of having to give the valedictorian address when he left high school. He'd been asked to teach a few classes as part of his doctorate, but after the incident with the balloon he'd swiftly been replaced, and even Dr Kleiner had never spoken of it again. Barney knew all this, and now he expected Gordon to somehow convince the entire base… and of what, exactly? Gordon didn't even know.

Barney reached out his hand. "Come on, Gordon." He grinned. "I dare ya." Gordon sat forward. He hated the current situation, but nonetheless, this couldn't be allowed to stand, and he followed Barney into the corridor.

"You still owe me from the last dare, Barney," he said, outraged.

"No, cause you never actually completed the challenge. You didn't eat it."

"Well I was going to eat it, but the microwave broke. I was hardly going to eat cold casserole. And then… something came up."

"Oh yeah." Barney shook his head in mock solemnity. "There was that industrial accident…"

At that point, his face fell suddenly, as Magnusson's head swiveled and fixed them both with a glare as though all his worst suspicions had suddenly been confirmed. Alyx was looking back with a smile that was almost indulgent. She obviously enjoyed listening to them banter and bicker. Standing behind her, Gordon could see the rips in the back of her jacket, two puncture wounds surrounded by dried blood, beneath which the soft, vulnerable skin was miraculously intact once again…

The sight of them brought back vivid sense-memories, and so Gordon began to walk more quickly, leaving the little group behind him. He hated speaking in public; give him a gun emplacement to storm any day. And the thought of it was made ten times worse by the fact that he didn't know what he was supposed to be saying. The portal to the Combine Overworld has been closed? They knew that. There's still a whole bunch of Combine forces left to fight? They surely knew that too. As to what would happen afterwards, assuming there was anyone left alive, Gordon had no idea. He'd never paid much attention in history or civics class, preferring to hide his copy of A Brief History of Time inside his textbooks. Because funnily enough, he'd never expected to be involved in a situation where a society had to be rebuilt from scratch, let alone to be forced into some kind of leadership position. An absurd line from a cartoon he'd once loved had settled irritatingly into his mind, and was refusing to budge. "Oh look, John Hancock's writing his name in the snow…" It was the kind of thing he could imaging Barney doing, but it didn't really help. But he couldn't let Alyx down.

Gordon was a scientist and a researcher, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was gathering and interpreting information. He stopped as his eyes found the thing he'd been subconsciously seeking ever since he left the bedroom. Before the others could catch up to him, he swiftly inserted the curved end of the crowbar in between the vents of the grille set into the wall just above him, and pried it free.

"Oh, not this again…" Alyx sighed from behind him as he wriggled forward.

"I blame you for this, Calhoun." Magnusson's voice, quiet but full of venom, was the last thing he heard.

Gordon had a fairly good sense of direction, and he thought he'd seen the storage area that Alyx was referring to on his travels through the White Forest base. If the worst came to the worst, he though, he could just drop back down and go there on foot. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, he wasn't even certain what he felt, but there was one person he knew he wanted to talk to. Voices rose up from the rooms below, as he crawled through the tunnels and gaps of the old military base.

"…At first he was just standing around, and I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. But then he picked his gun up, and he just got this sort of _master_ful look in his eyes, and I was all like, Oh, Dr _Free_man…" Gordon felt himself blushing, partly wishing that Barney had heard the conversation, partly relieved that Alyx hadn't.

"…I don't rate him, personally. Anyone could do what he does, hell give me a suit like that and I'd…" He scowled at this. If the HEV suit were not so precisely calibrated for him and him alone, right down to his eyesight and shoe size and the position of his brachial veins, he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Yes, he reminded himself, you'd probably be dead instead.

"…If I never see another Strider again it'll be too soon. Good eating on 'em though…"

"…Did you see that guy try and punch a Hunter?"

"…Well I heard he lost someone, but I mean, that's no excuse…" This conversation was more interesting, but the sound of a door closing drowned out the voices from below. Eventually, he found the room he wanted and smashed out the vent. The man was asleep on the ground under a ragged blanket, but he leapt to his feet as Gordon landed beside him.

"What?" Astonishment warred with sleep in his face. He was thin and tough, but Gordon thought he looked exhausted. He stared at the locked gate, and then back at Gordon. "Gordon Freeman? How did you...?"

"I came in through the vent!" Gordon said hurriedly, gesturing at the gap in the ceiling. The last thing he wanted was some sort of ability to materialize at will added to his reputation. He stepped back and studied the prisoner, uncertain how to continue. "What's your name?" He asked finally.

"Name's Tomas. How did you… I mean, why did you come here? Just to talk to me?" He seemed thrilled by the idea. Gordon scowled at him.

"Yes to talk to you. I just…" He kicked the wall, awkward. "I want to know why you beat someone, because of me. I mean it's just… I'm having trouble understanding… why."

Tomas snorted. "That guy thinks he's a hotshot, but I showed him what's what, even if he is a pilot. He was trying to make out you don't know what you're doing." Gordon was torn between pointing out that this was, in fact, quite often the case, and letting him continue. "You saved my life, so I ain't having that. He wasn't in City 17, he doesn't know what it was like. I mean sure, his brother died at Lighthouse Point, but we had to get you into Nova Prospekt, we had to! Once you took out Nova Prospekt, the worst thing they could do to us was kill us, so there was nothing left to lose! But you try telling him that…" As he paused to take a breath, his eyes fell. "I guess I could have told him more tactfully." He looked Gordon straight in the eye, his face a mixture of shame and desperation and hope, and it made Gordon exquisitely uncomfortable, but he rallied himself. If he was going to get through this, for Alyx's sake, then he would learn to cope in situations like these, the same way he'd learned to cope when small aliens were trying to mate with his face. He thought for a moment, then nodded.

"Come with me."

He pounded on the storage door. The two guards who opened the door looked irritated, but their expressions changed to one of amazement as Gordon swept through, not speaking, just focusing on where he wanted to get to next. The stairwell, the corridor, and then he turned the corner into sickbay. Jarrod's eye was blackened and his arm was in a sling, but Gordon was relieved to see that he was sitting up in bed, evidently deep in conversation with a few companions. He turned to Gordon and made to speak, but Gordon raised his hand to cut him off. He was surprised and rather pleased when the men fell silent at his gesture. He focused his attention solely on Jarrod, and spoke quietly.

"I'm sorry for the loss of your brother. I wanted to go to the prison to save my friend, because he was my friend, and because he seemed to be so… important, now. So much changed while I was away, I had to rely on going where I was sent. I didn't realize I was going to be followed. I didn't realize people like your brother were going to get attacked. I do now though. I'm sorry."

"Wait a minute." Jarrod was frowning. "You were 'away'? Where did you go?"

Gordon sighed. This was _so_ not the time to mention the Grey Man. "After I was at Black Mesa, there was an accident. A physics accident."

Jarrod looked scornful. "You're telling me."

"No, I mean after that. I was trying to teleport and I… wound up in City 17."

"Huh. So you're not one of those interdimensional demons that the Vorts worship?"

"No." That one was interesting though.

"And you're not the next generation of Combine soldier, disguised to look like us so you can undermine us from within?"

"No!"

"Show me your hair."

"What?"

"He wants to check for scars," Tomas broke in. "The paranoid idiot wants to know if you've had the Combine brain surgery."

Gordon pointed at the small scar on his cheek. "I fell off my bike when I was six, but I think that's it."

"So you really _are_ just a lab nerd who got lucky with a suit. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Gordon was literally unable to speak with exasperation, but he had a pretty good idea you could tell from his face.

"Ok, ok!" Jarrod continued. "So you just showed up in City 17. And people just… send you here and there."

"Pretty much. It's something I'm trying to change, though."

Tomas sounded appalled, almost hurt. "So you're not the guy who got nearly everyone out of Black Mesa, freed the Vortigaunts, and then killed the Combine Administrator of a whole alternative universe?"

"Well, I did, but-" He wanted to say it didn't matter, that he didn't even understand why they cared with the Combine still on their doorstep, when Griggs burst in. For an alleged medic, Gordon felt, he seemed to spend very little time in sickbay.

"Guys," he gasped, and then "Freeman! Come outside, we need… you have to see this. Oh God…" He gulped and then ran on, down the corridor. The whole base was filled with an atmosphere of tension, and as he burst into the courtyard outside, Gordon could see why. Two Striders were visible through the treetops, still distant, but everyone knew that they were more than close enough for their awesome destructive capabilities to destroy them all. His face fell as he ran over to his companions.

"What's going on?"

"Not sure," Barney replied. "They just seem to be… waiting. For something."

"I'd say it's entirely obvious what they're waiting for," Magnusson interjected. "The portal back to their Overworld was closed, and the means of creating the portals was destroyed, along with the Citadels. Then, they failed to acquire the Aperture technology that would have enabled them to reopen it from this side." He spoke of it in the passive tense, Gordon noted, like a lab report. No acknowledgement of his and Barney's involvement at all. "Their only remaining option is to recreate that technology. And for that, they need the only remaining expert on the subject who hasn't either been lobotomized or else transported off-world. They need, not to be too modest, myself. And, of course, the invaluable assistance of my esteemed colleague." He indicated Dr Kleiner. "And Freeman, probably, for the menial labor and heavy lifting."

"Wait a minute!" Sheckley was studying the approaching forces through a binocular style device. It was the same as the one Gordon had looked through on Highway 17, but this one had evidently been liberated from the Combine some time ago. "SEE the Grand Canyon!" had been painted on the side, and someone had even drawn a little slot for a quarter.

Gordon pulled his glasses off and peered through the sights. Focusing in, he could distinguish the legs of the Striders from the surrounding trees. Troops were coming and going, including a large number of Elites. He counted at least two large tanks that looked as if they might contain Advisors, and a shiver ran down his spine. There was also a metal pod of the kind used to transport prisoners. The lid had been flipped back, and within the pod, clearly visible, was Judith Mossman.

* * *

**AN:** sorry sorry sorry about the massive delay! I got a bad case of writers block, combined with becoming really busy academically... I also got a little distracted by getting into Fallout (I almost feel like I'm cheating on Valve). But anyway, here it finally is, the next chapter! I've tried to go into the idea of postapocalyptic society, and factions within factions (maybe it's the Fallout influence), and I'd be really interested to hear what you think of this. There are a ton of readers and writers out there who's opinions I really respect, so please review.

Speaking of other writers, thanks once again to KRSON-Mar for betaing. You should all have read her amazing story, Touch. If not, then what are you waiting for! Go read it! (after you leave a review of course ;)


	10. Base Substitution

Gordon turned to Barney, mouth slightly agape. "I thought you said she was…" But even as he spoke, he felt uncertain. When he'd fled the Borealis, his mental priorities had been finding Alyx, powering up his ailing suit, and getting the hell out of there. The wellbeing of the possibly traitorous, definitely irritating Dr Mossman hadn't even crossed his mind. But Barney was looking apologetic.

"I thought she _was_ dead, Gordon. Thought they all were… What I saw inside that bunker…" He shook his head. "That's why I didn't let you go back there. You'd have tossed your cookies for sure."

"Really, Barney," Dr Kleiner clucked. "This is the Mark V Hazardous Environment Suit we're talking about. He doesn't have any cookies to toss." He tutted irritably and moved to stand beside Magnusson. Gordon turned away to hide his smile, aware of Alyx and Barney doing the same beside him. He knew that if their eyes met, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from bursting out laughing. To react in the face of danger with such a petty piece of scientific nitpicking was his mentor all over. Gordon thought he saw a similar spasm of amusement cross Magnusson's face, before he concealed it with a scowl and turned back towards Dr Kleiner with a posture that seemed almost protective.

Two rebels who had apparently been monitoring the situation from further down the compound, tough-looking individuals wielding AR-2s, now approached the group. "Doctors, step this way please." The man was one of the older rebels Gordon had seen, appearing to be in his 50s, although it was always hard to tell. He was respectful, but brusque and no-nonsense as he gestured back towards the door. "We don't believe they'll attack while their main targets are actually inside the building. Too much risk of accidentally taking you out. We're going to evacuate all key personnel through the rear hatches, then lure them into the compound using a skeleton force and blow the traps."

Doctor Magnusson thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes," he declared, "that makes sense. I'll need a few men to help gather my most essential equipment."

"And to help find Lamarr!" Dr Kleiner declared as he began to follow his colleague into the base.

"Blast that creature! Do you want us to end up back in-" here he sad a word that sounded to Gordon like "zantolger", although as with so many things since he'd arrived in City 17, he had no idea what Magnusson was actually referring to,

Gordon realised that the rebel was waiting for him to follow his colleagues, and he felt his skin crawl as the implications struck him. More people were going to die as he moved on to whatever mission was considered important enough for the One Free Man and left them in his wake. He opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, the female rebel spoke.

"Actually Dr Freeman, there is something you could help us out with first." Her face was weary as she handed him one of the small black crossbows that simultaneously fascinated and repulsed him slightly with their metallic, alien smell. "I hear you're pretty good with one of these." Gordon took it, puzzled. It was true that since the resonance cascade he'd discovered he was surprisingly good with ranged weapons. He wouldn't have expected it with his poor eyesight, but maybe it was compensated for by his ability to calculate forces and motion. The woman was still watching him. As he hesitated, unsure what she was expecting, she put her hand on his arm. "I know it can be so hard, but... believe me, when you don't manage to reach them in time it actually feels worse." Her face darkened, but she pulled herself together. "I'd do it myself, but with that suit on, you'll have more time to get a better aim. Trust me, Dr Freeman, no one wants to end up a Stalker."

Suddenly Gordon realised what it was they were asking him to do. He dropped the crossbow as an involuntary shudder of horror passed through him. As soon as it left his fingers, however, he regretted it, and time seemed to move almost in slow motion as he saw the weapon tumble and strike the ground. There was a twang and a sizzle, and the glowing bolt went streaking across the compound, causing people to cry out in fear and outrage as they threw themselves out of the way. Some, presumably the ones who were worried that he was some kind of Combine sleeper agent, came up clutching their weapons. Gordon heard a fizzy, crackling sound from behind him that was oddly familiar, and turned to see a couple of Vortigaunts behind him, powering up.

People screamed, and Gordon knew exactly how they felt. He'd grown so used to thinking of the Vortigaunts as allies, largely incomprehensible but strangely endearing, that he'd almost forgotten the loathing they used to inspire in him. When they'd begun hissing, "Die, Gordon!" at him down the half-lit concrete corridors, he honestly hadn't known what was more frightening – the idea that he'd gone slightly mad and was imagining it, or the idea that he wasn't. He had to confess, he'd taken a special savage delight in killing the ones that had known his name. And in spite of the impression of humanity he'd left on them, they now fought alongside the Resistance, acclaimed him as the Freeman… They were even apparently keeping the Grey Man away from him, and he wanted to keep them on his side for that, even if they were doing it for some mysterious ends of their own; but he didn't want them killing for him, didn't want anyone fighting over him.

All the horrors Gordon had witnessed in City 17 had been made exponentially worse by the pressure of the fact that much of the Resistance appeared to view him as some sort of savior who would make it all better for them. If someone had told him previously that there was another, substantial group who thought the opposite he would have seen it as a relief, only now it appeared to be forming the basis for a nascent civil war. Gordon sighed. He knew he was prone to guilt at the best of times; so this was just the sort of thing he didn't need.

He stepped forward, putting himself in between the two groups. "Uh… stop!" he yelled. In his mind, it had been a lot more impressive. He didn't like to shout a lot, and his voice was hoarse and slightly… well, yelpy. He could picture Barney rolling his eyes, Alyx somewhat disappointed, like that time he'd crashed the car into the tree, again.

It certainly didn't seem to have impressed the Rebel commander. "Ok, people, let's just calm it all down." He sounded almost bored. "We're proceeding with the evacuation. Everything else can wait til we get to somewhere safer."

Alyx had been uncharacteristically quiet. Gordon could hear her, breathing heavily, and suddenly realised she was furious. "We're not evacuating. This is people's home, it's where… Look, we can hold them off! We held off more Striders before… Gordon can do it!"

"We had a reason to hold them off before – the rocket. And a lot of good men died to do so, although not, fortunately, Dr Freeman." Gordon couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic, and decided to optimistically assume that the man was just tired. Alyx folded her arms, her lips thin.

"And those men are buried here now. My dad is buried here. We're not leaving!" Her last sentence rose defiantly, and a few people across the compound took up the cheer.

"Ms Vance, with all due respect, now that your… the science team are no longer in charge."

A woman in a flak jacket stepped forward. Her accent was thick like Father Grigori's had been. "I'm from zantolger" – that word again – "and I say: whoever has the surname Vance is in charge!" People stepped up to stand beside her. Gordon noticed many denim jumpsuits among the Resistance uniforms in this group. "We are the ones who started this; we, and the Opener of the Way!" Another cheer rang out at this.

"Be that as it may." The man was clearly trying to retain a militarily professional façade, despite the sneer that was trying to make its way across his face. "There wasn't a whole lot of actual resistance going on until my unit arrived to reinforce you."

"You jerk," Alyx rounded on him angrily, "there wouldn't be a Resistance at all if it wasn't for Unc- Dr Kleiner!"

Gordon was quite used to not understanding everything that was going on around him, but the image of Dr Kleiner as a revolutionary hero was too much to take. "Alyx, what are they talking about? What's… zantolger?"

For a moment Alyx looked confused, then her face brightened. "I guess you never picked up on the name while you were there, huh? Must've been traveling around a lot back then. St. Olga was the name of that Combine research facility. They brought us there when I was a child; me, my dad, Dr Magnusson, Uncle Izzy… other scientists from all over the world. Maybe you didn't realize we were there?" She looked at him questioningly, and he nodded for her to continue. It was easier than explaining that he had no idea what she was talking about. "Everyone had to work on weapons and technology for the Combine. They used us kids as hostages, to force the adults to work, and we had to assemble the things they designed, in this big factory. Sometimes they gave us these tests, and the people that did the best got taken away and never came back. I used to always try and fail, so they wouldn't take me away from my dad, but it was so difficult to remember… They drugged us, in our food, the water… there was nothing we could do. Then that day you broke in, you destroyed the big cannon up at the church." She was smiling at the memory. Gordon was straining to remember so hard his head hurt. He could very faintly recall a splash, and the shock of the cold. Salt water burning his nose, like that time his dad had thrown him off the pier in an attempt to teach him to swim, on that family vacation they had taken to the little village on the shore with the big white church…

He shook his head, memories too confused, the image fading as Alyx coughed, seemingly a little embarrassed by the gratitude in her expression in the face of Gordon's evident incomprehension. She went on. "There was so much disruption, they didn't bring us our rations, and we started to remember things. Then Dr Kleiner built this machine that filtered the drugs out of the water for us. He didn't drink for three days while he worked on it… he nearly died. Then my dad attached it to the water pipe that was supplying the village below, and it all just sort of… went from there."

Gordon felt a surge of pride and affection for his mentor. He hoped that Dr Kleiner and the others had made it out of the base as planned. Because looking at Alyx, with her hands on her hips and her eyes flashing, he knew he wouldn't be following them. If he thought that there was even the slightest chance that she would agree, then he would be begging her to leave as well. But she always wanted to be at the heart of the fight. And the Borealis wasn't enough for her; she wanted to avenge her father, here at the site of his grave. One of the things Gordon loved about Alyx was the fact that she wasn't the kind of woman he, or anyone else, could tell what to do. Also, even when she was covered in mud and blood and hadn't washed for days, she still smelled amazing. So if she wasn't leaving, then he certainly wasn't. He was going to stay here, keep her safe, and buy everyone else enough time to escape.

"Gordon?" Looking up, he was met with a mildly exasperated expression from Barney. He knew his friend had become used to Gordon zoning out in the middle of conversations, before abruptly coming back to himself and blurting out some random words and Greek letters by way of explanation. Gordon wasn't about to tell him what was on his mind now though; he'd never hear the end of it. Instead, he moved his gaze over to Alyx, and allowed himself one deep look into her eyes, before turning back to Barney with a shrug and a nod.

Barney grinned. "My guys stay with me, and I'm staying with Gordon and Alyx," he said to the base commander. The man looked as if he would argue, but Barney placed a conciliatory hand on his shoulder. "Look, we've got 'em cut off from their homeworld." He glanced at Gordon as if to check that this was right, and Gordon nodded. Barney went on. "They can't bring through reinforcements, or any more giant synthetic… bug things. So at some point, we're gonna have to stop hiding from 'em and start trying to wipe 'em out." He shrugged. "Might as well be now."

Gordon couldn't help but smile. His friend had always had a way with words, the gift of the gab, and the ability to talk himself out of any kind of trouble. Or into trouble, the way they were heading now. He could see the commander nodding, a smile spreading across his face in spite of himself. The opportunity to finally begin to fight back against the occupiers was something he'd no doubt been waiting a long time for.

"Ok!" He called across to the assembled rebels. "Vehicle squad to escort the senior scientists plus any essential equipment. Everyone else…" He raised his voice. "You remember what the secondary fire does, right?" Widespread cheering broke out, people were waving their weapons, yelling and screaming in the direction of the Combine. Gordon wondered if this was what it had been like when battle first broke out on the streets of City 17, while he was in the slow teleport; the same exhilaration, the same suicidal defiance. Barney was grinning, his breathing quick, his eyes gleaming; while Alyx was all business as she loaded her gun. Gordon found himself temporarily captivated with the little line that always appeared between her eyebrows when she was concentrating.

The mood was broken and all three of them flinched instinctively as the mournful digitized wail of a Strider boomed out above them, drowning all other sound. Gordon reloaded his crossbow and then used the scope to watch the movements of the Combine as the treetops began to rustle and shake. The skin at the base of his spine crawled, and he felt his testicles rise up by at least a couple of inches as he saw the first flashes of blue between the trees. For a moment, evacuation really didn't seem like such a bad idea after all. His feet felt heavy, and rooted to the ground.

"Alyx?" he called softly, and she glanced back at him. "How old were you? When you were working in that factory, I mean?"

"Oh… well it's hard to remember, cause of the water… small enough that my hands fit inside the casings, I guess. Why?" As she spoke, she rubbed absently at her right wrist.

"Tell you later," he said through gritted teeth, Her words were exactly what he had needed to hear, and he used them as fuel for a kind of cold, burning determination as he broke into a run for the gate. It was a simple equation. The more Combine he could kill, and the longer he could hold their forces off; the greater a chance Alyx had to survive.

"Gordon!" Barney called, and threw him an AR-2. "If me and Jimbob here can get in close enough, then him and his Vort buddies can deep-fry those Shu'ulathoi bastard while they're still in their shells." He ran towards his group of Rebels and Vortigaunts, leaving Gordon wondering at what point that particular nickname had been bestowed. "Clear us a path!" Barney called back over his shoulder.

Gordon ran with Alyx, out into the forest. People were behind them, fanning out, spreading into defensive positions. Alyx turned to him. "Just you and me again, huh Gordon… next time, how about you take me on a proper date?" He grinned, and she winked at him. "So what's the plan?" She seemed somewhat taken aback by his lack of response. "How did you take care of the one on the Borealis?"

Gordon rubbed at the back of his neck. "I guess you could say that was kind of… inadvertent."

Alyx sighed. "Ok, well, let's just… improvise when we get there."

"Yeah," Gordon sighed back, "that sounds like us." It was a happy kind of sigh, though. He liked that word, "us".

Alyx abruptly dropped to one knee and began shooting, and Gordon joined her a moment later as Combine soldiers began to emerge along the paths. All around them were the sounds of gunfire, people calling advice and encouragement to one another as they tried to make out their targets through the trees. The unearthly shriek of the synths echoed across the clearing, making them all tense up. Gordon ran towards it, trying to get his HEV suit between it and the others. A Rebel was pinned against the tree, impaled on a Hunter's tusks, his face contorted with fear and pain. Gordon ran forward and raised his rifle, lining up the secondary fire. He had to hit it first time.

He fired, and the projectile stuck the creature dead centre, dispersing its unearthly energy across the Hunter's surface as it began to fall apart. Gordon ran forward to help the man, now freed, but he fell forwards as the tusks that had restrained him faded from view. Blood was gushing from his mouth, and from the twin wounds in his abdomen. "Sorry," Gordon whispered, as he took the man's rifle and used it to reload his own weapon. He felt sick again, a buzzing sound in his ears. Turning back to check on Alyx, he became aware of an upcry behind him, people fleeing. He heard the sudden "chow, chow, chow!" sound of a Strider's cannon, aiming in his direction. It struck the base of a tree, which fell sideways, cutting him off from the people behind him. "Alyx!" he called, and began looking for a way round. The buzzing sound became louder, it was changing to a sharp thud, directly overhead…

"FREEMAN!" Gordon turned, and he sw the helicopter, hovering off the ground in the clearing behind him, Jarrod in the cockpit gesturing furiously through the broken window. "Get to the chopper!" Gordon felt outraged as he ran towards the helicopter. "I can't believe you just said that," he complained as he reached the door.

"Yeah yeah, get in," Jarrod replied. "The cargo hold's piled up with Magnusson's, and you're the only one knows how to use 'em." Gordon pulled himself into the helicopter as it began to rise. There were indeed a large number of the spherical devices, with a fresh one seemingly just arriving in the dispenser that had been fitted to the craft before they left for the Borealis.

"Let's go bust some Striders!" the pilot called over the intercom. Gordon knelt in the open doorway, wedging himself into a stable position as he took the Grav gun in his right hand, his rifle in his left. Fucking let's, he thought to himself as he peered anxiously over the edge, trying to catch a glimpse of Alyx through the dust and smoke.

* * *

**A/N: **As Chekhov himself (might have) once said, "A Magnusson Device dispenser that appears on stage during the first act must be fired before the curtain falls…"

People who have played / are aware of the Lost Coast will realise that I have taken some non-canon liberties with it here, as I have moved it to take place several years before Half-Life 2, and changed what was just a headcrab shell launching site into an entire research facility. I have also referenced some of the other cut content (mainly children working in factories).

To me this produces a satisfying explanation of how the entire Black Mesa faculty seemingly ended up in Eastern Europe, as well as why so many people have heard of Gordon before the game even begins.

Thanks once again to KRSONMar for betaing!

28/4/11 - edited for minor grammar and changing Hitchcock to Chekhov - thanks for pointing that out ;)


End file.
